Strode, William

(1602-1645)

   Born near Plympton, Devonshire, he was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, with a B.A. (1621), M.A. (1624), B.D. (1631) and D.D. (1638). After taking holy orders, he became chaplain to Richard Corbet, bishop of Oxford, and in 1633 he became rector of East Bradenham, Norfolk, but continued to reside in Oxford University, where he was public orator. When Charles I and Queen Henrietta visited the university in 1636, Strode welcomed them at the gate of Christ Church with a Latin oration, and later the students performed a tragi-comedy by him called The Floating Island. The songs were set to music by Henry Lawes. He died at Christ Church and was buried in the divinity chapel of Christ Church Cathedral. Some of his poems: "A Devonshire Song," "Bracelets," "In Commendation of Music," "On Chloris Walking in the Snow," "On Westwall Downs," "Once Venus' cheeks, that shamed the morn," "Opposite to Melancholy," "The Nightingale."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Lyric Poems, 1500-1900. C. Day Lewis, ed. Appleton-CenturyCrofts, 1961. English Poetry: Author Search. ChadwyckHealey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Poets of the English Language, Vol. II. W.H. Auden and Norman Holmes Pearson, eds. Viking Press, 1950. Songs from the British Drama. Edward Bliss Reed, ed. Yale University Press, 1925. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse. Alastair Fowler, ed. Oxford University Press, 1991. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.