They Flee from Me is a love lyric by the English poet Sir Thomas Wyatt. Like many of Wyatt’s poems, this lyric was not published until after the poet’s death. It appeared as part of a collection titled The Book of Songs and Sonnets (1557), published by Richard Tottel and known as Tottel’s Miscellany. Wyatt’s poetry is usually linked with that of the Earl of Surrey, whose work was published at the same time in Tottel’s Miscellany.
Wyatt is famous for introducing the sonnet techniques of the Italian poet Petrarch into English literature. He also adapted the style and subjects of Italian Renaissance courtly love poetry to English verse. Wyatt wrote his poetry within the strict rules of courtly love, with its precise rules of behavior and formal style of address. However, his poetry also suggests a level of highly personal expression. In “They Flee from Me,” the speaker laments the fickleness (“newfangleness”) of his lady, who, like birds or animals of prey, once pursued him but now chooses to “flee.”
They flee from me that sometime did me seek With naked foot stalking in my chamber. I have seen them gentle tame and meek That now are wild and do not remember That sometime they put themselves in danger To take bread at my hand; and now they range Busily seeking with a continual change. Thanked be Fortune it hath been otherwise Twenty times better; but once in special, In thin array after a pleasant guise, When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall, And she me caught in her arms long and small; And therewith all sweetly did me kiss, And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?” It was no dream: I lay broad waking. But all is turned thorough my gentleness Into a strange fashion of forsaking; And I have leave to go of her goodness, And she also to use newfangleness. But since that I so kindely am served, I fain would know what she hath deserved.
As in many poems of this genre, a central metaphor for love is the hunt, with its formal “stalking” of prey. In this poem, the speaker once enjoyed being “caught” in the arms of his lover, but he now regrets his surrender. He even suggests a bitterness that his own good manners—his “gentleness”—have led to his betrayal.
Modern assessments of Wyatt’s contribution to English literature have varied widely. Many critics have noted the variations in the meter of Wyatt’s verse. Tottel has adapted many of the poems, including “They Flee from Me,” to a more natural iambic meter, with a stress on every other syllable. Admirers of Wyatt’s poetry have pointed to the depth and complexity of Wyatt’s verse, despite its use of the formal rules of expression and composition. His poems are seen as a early form of the love poetry of great poets of the 1600’s, such as John Donne.
For more information about Wyatt, see Wyatt, Sir Thomas. See also English literature (Elizabethan poetry); Poetry (Rhythm and meter).
