After yesterday’s nod towards the Yeats Day celebrations I have moved in a rather frivolous direction and have a short poem from a Restoration poet, Sir Charles Sedley (1639-1701). This is one of the poems I mentioned as being in my little mini red book called Come Live with Me, along with Christopher Marlowe’s Passionate Shepherd.

Faithless Phillis

One of the things I love about this book are the decorated front and end papers and this is a scan of the front of the book, showing a dedication to a previous owner. So, not only do I wonder who the faithless Phillis might have been; I also wonder who Gwen was, who once owned this book and then gave it away at some point.

Poet and his Lady

You might also be interested in knowing a little more about Sir Charles who was one of Charles II’s ministers, ending up as the Speaker of the House of Commons.  He also got up to various activities of a roistering nature as I discovered courtesy of a lovely history blog Two Nerdy History Girls. Look away now if you’re easily shocked. I believe Samuel Pepys had something to say on the subject, so I must look that reference up. Pepys also lives on the Landing Book Shelves and is a very old resident on the TBR Pile. Tackling his diaries would be a Reading Challenge all by itself so I will probably save him for another year.

I’ll now go away and work on an idea for tomorrow’s choice of poem for #PoetryinJune. Any favourites so far? Let me know if you have one.