A Song
of Welcome The title is not authorial. First printed by
Gifford from the Newcastle MS (BL Harley MS 4955, fol. 52v), in which it
is followed by ‘A Song of the Moon’. There is no rule or heading in the
MS between this and the next poem. It is possible that they were
conceived as part of the same work or to celebrate the same occasion.
H&S conjecture
a date early in Charles’s reign. The presence of the poem in the
Newcastle MS, however, may well indicate that it was composed for the
Earl of Newcastle’s entertainment of Charles at Welbeck on 21 May 1633
on his progress to be crowned King of Scotland. This occasion would make
sense of ‘the years which you begin’ in line 7 and the coronation of the
obelisk, since a ‘new’ reign over Scotland was beginning. The ‘prime of
flowers’ sounds more like May than the only other possible occasion for
the poem, which would be a celebration of the King’s accession day on 27
Mar. The poem is probably indeed a draft of verses for
Welbeck, which was composed to mark this occasion: the
springscape and triplet rhymes are very similar to
Welbeck, 6, 16. The obelisk (5) and the ‘low bank’ (3) may
have required a setting which was more lavish than was practicable for
the already extravagant dinner-time performance. [Editor: Colin Burrow]