The critical view of the Delia sonnet sequence is that it is beautiful but mediocre, well written but limited in scope. A masterpiece of phrasing and melody, but which offers no ideas, no psychology and no story. Perhaps it could be summed up as a sequence that will appeal to poets and lovers of form, but may leave the general reader a little cold. This would be a pity because two themes emerge which are treated at length: a sustained elegiac lament on the passing of youth (and beauty) and a declaration of faith in the survival of the poets vision. These are not new themes for the Elizabethan sonneteers and some may feel they are too dominant in a sequence that is meant to be about love, although to be fair courtly love.

There are fifty sonnets in the Delia sequence and twenty eight of them were published in 1591 at the conclusion of Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella. In the following year he had printed the remaining twenty two with revisions to the earlier twenty eight. He continued to refine the sonnets for versions printed in 1594 and 1601 and so he was a precursor to William Wordsworth who famously brought out later more refined versions of his Prelude. Like Wordsworth Daniel could be accused of tinkering with the originals to no great effect other than to reduce still further any of the passion in the original. I read the 1592 versions before a more mature Daniel had made his revisions: as though he was trying to banish all thoughts of lusty youthfulness. The sonnets have a regular rhyming scheme and end with a rhyming couplet in which the final line comments or or makes sense of the preceding 13 lines.

Throughout the poem we learn nothing much about Delia only that she continues to look on the poet with disdain and never gives a hint that she welcomes his attentions. In fact so little happens that Delia may well have been completely unaware of the poets love for her. Delia is an anagram of Ideal and she may have only existed in the poets imagination. Here is an example and one of my favourites from the sequence (if only for the first four lines):

Sonnet XLV.
Care-charmer sleepe, sonne of the Sable night,
Brother to death, in silent darknes borne:
Relieue my languish, and restore the light,
With darke forgetting of my cares returne
And let the day be time enough to morne,
The shipwrack of my ill-aduentred youth:
Let vvaking eyes suffice to vvayle theyr scorne,
Without the torment of the nights vntruth.
Cease dreames, th'ymagery of our day desires,
To modell foorth the passions of the morrow:
Neuer let rysing Sunne approue you lyers,
To adde more griefe to aggrauat my sorrow.
Still let me sleepe, imbracing clovvdes in vaine;
And neuer vvake, to feele the dayes disdayne.

Sonnet XXXV shows his debt to Petrarch:

Sonnet XXXV.
Thou canst not dye whilst any zeale abounde
In feeling harts, that can conceiue these lines:
Though thou a Laura hast no Petrarch founde,
In base attire, yet cleerely Beautie shines.
And I, though borne in a colder clime,
Doe feele mine inward heate as great, I knowe it:
He neuer had more faith, although more rime,
I loue as well, though he could better shew it.
But I may ad one feather to thy fame,
To helpe her flight throughout the fairest Ile:
And if my penne could more enlarge thy name,
Then shouldst thou liue in an immortall stile.
But though that Laura better limned bee,
Suffice, thou shalt be lou'd as well as shee.

The Complaint of Rosamond is a poem of 742 lines divided into seven line stanzas with a regular rhyming scheme of ABABBCC and it tells the story of Rosamond who appears as a ghost to tell the poet of her complaint. She was a beautiful virtuous young woman who came to be noticed by King Henry II of France. She finally gave into his advances and he built a Palace for her which could only be entered by a complicated maze. She is now alone with her entourage of female assistants and regrets that nobody else is witness to her beauty. Henry's Queen discovers a way into the maze and forces Rosamond to drink poison. Henry discovers her body and is bereft.

Much can be made of the allegory and classical allusions in the poem, but it can be enjoyed as a straight forward moral tale. It is full of passion and feeling, almost melodrama which makes it an interesting companion to Delia. Daniel does not miss an opportunity to compare the actions of Rosamond with the chaste Delia of his earlier poem. Time passing and the destruction of beauty is again a theme explored:

What greater torment euer could haue beene,
Then to inforce the fayre to liue retired?
For what is Beautie if it be not seene,
Or what is't to be seene vnlesse admired?
And though admyred, vnlesse in loue desired?
Neuer were cheekes of Roses, locks of Amber,
Ordayn'd to liue imprisond in a Chamber.

Daniel's choice of words and phrases flow beautifully in a poem that can be read pleasurably today. It was good to read these poems one after another and while my reactions to Delia were a little cool, after reading Rosamond I went back to Delia and discovered much to like. 4 stars.… (meer)