My Prime of Youth is but a Frost of Cares

Chidiock Tichborne died in 1586, still a young man. He was an English Catholic who took part in the Babington Plot against Queen Elizabeth I and was executed for treason in September of that year. Tradition holds that he wrote this poem in the Tower of London on the eve of his death, and that he sent it to his wife in a letter. It is often called his Elegy, and it is almost all that is remembered of his writing.

The poem is made of three six-line stanzas in which nearly every line is built on a paradox: a feast of joy that is only a dish of pain, a crop of corn that is only a field of tares. Each stanza ends on the same line, “And now I live, and now my life is done”, which turns the poem into a slow count of the hours left to a life that was hardly begun. The simple words and the strict pattern give it a haunting power, and it has become one of the most frequently anthologised poems of the Elizabethan period.

This is a multi-version recording from the LibriVox poetry project for the week of 2 December 2007. In 13 short chapters, each identified by the initials of its reader, volunteers give their versions of the poem, and the whole lasts about eighteen minutes. Hearing so many readings of one text makes you aware of its structure and of the different feelings it can carry. The repetition of the final line in every stanza gives the readers a natural place for emphasis, and each handles it differently. It is a short listening experience that stays in the mind far longer than its running time suggests, and a fine way to meet one of the best-known short poems in the English language.