The new poets had to find their own language, to enrich with borrowings from other tongues the stock of words suitable for poetry which the dropping of inflection had left to English.

Wyatt was at the beginning of the process, and apart from a gracious and courtly temper, his work has, it must be confessed, hardly more than an antiquarian interest.

Surrey, it is possible to say on reading his work, went one step further.

He allows himself oftener the luxury of a reference to personal feelings, and his poetry contains from place to place a fairly full record of the vicissitudes of his life.

A prisoner at Windsor, he recalls his childhood there "The large green courts where we were wont to hove, The palme-play, where, despoiled for the game.
With dazzled eyes oft we by gleams of love Have missed the ball, and got sight of our dame." Like Wyatt's, his verses are poor stuff, but a sympathetic ear can catch in them something of the accent that distinguishes the verse of Sidney and Spenser.