My mind to me a kingdom is;




Such present joys therein I find,

That it excels all other bliss
That earth affords or grows by kind:
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave …

This poem has been popular with readers ever since it was first published in 1588 in William Byrd’s Psalmes, Sonets, & Songs. Yet the authorship of ‘My mind to me a kingdom is’ is by no means certain, and some anthologists now prefer to credit Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, with authorship rather than Dyer. Whoever wrote it, it’s an inspiring Renaissance poem about the power of ‘mind over matter’ and the wonders of the human imagination.

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