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If Richard Churchley writes one kind of verse , then the lord of the Manor of Alcester, Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, certainly wrote a very different kind. He was the grandson of Fulke Greville the First, first of that name to receive the manor of Alcester. He was born at Beauchamp Court in 1554 and died in 1628. Greville had a national literary reputation but his verse will hardly commend itself to modern ears. Below is a short poem "Farewell Sweet Boy"
Farewell, sweet Boy, complain not of my truth;
Thy mother loved thee not with more devotion;
For to thy boy's play I gave all my youth,
Young master, I did hope for your promotion.
While some sought honours, princes' thoughts observing,
Many wooed fame, the child of pain and anguish,
Others judged inward good a chief deserving,
I in thy wanton visions joyed to languish.
I bowed not to the image for succession,
Nor bound thy bow to shoot reformed kindness,
Thy plays of hope and fear were my confession,
The spectacles to my life was thy blindness.
But Cupid now farewell, I will go play me
With thoughts that please me less, and less betray me.