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A great deal of excellent poetry was composed in Scotland in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. In 1603, when James Stewart became also king of England and Ireland, several Scottish poets moved to London, and commented on events at Court. Others preferred to remain in their homeland, at a distance from the metropolis; and some who had gone south soon returned home. In addition to the perennial themes of love and religion, attention was given to topics such as national identity, foreign travel, civil society, monarchy, the good life, friendship, retreat, and the nature and language of literature itself. Poets faced the political and cultural challenges inherent in the novel concept of Great Britain in a variety of ways, and the thistle and the rose bloomed together in the Jacobean garden of verses.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
About this anthology

Introduction: Steps to Parnassus

POETS AND POEMS

Simion Grahame
James Cockburne
Walter Quin
Elizabeth Melville
Robert Ayton
Alexander Craig
David Murray
William Alexander
Alexander Gardyne
William Drummond
William Mure
Patrick Gordon
Patrick Hannay
William Lithgow
Robert Allan
Robert Kerr
George Lauder

Notes
Bibliography
First-line index

Cover image: Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640): The Apotheosis of King James I, The Rubens Ceiling, Banqueting House, Whitehall, c. 1629–34 (oil on canvas)

Cover design: Mark Blackadder