Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1623–1673), published works in philosophy and natural science, as well as poetry, drama, and a seminal science-fiction novel. Unusually and controversially for a woman of her era, she published under her own name. In her youth, as lady-in-waiting to Queen Henrietta Maria, she spent some years in exile during the English Civil War, before returning to England and marrying the widowed William Cavendish, then Marquess of Newcastle, later first Duke of of Newcastle. By her own account, her marriage was a sincere love match and a meeting of creative intellects. This ironic little poem, in rhymed iambic-pentameter couplets, takes a shot at rumors of the day, which held that the duke must have done all his wife’s writing for her. 

The Duchess to her Readers 
by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne 
 
A Poet am I neither born nor bred, 
But to a witty poet marriéd: 
Whose brain is fresh and pleasant as the Spring, 
Where Fancies grow and where the Muses sing. 
There oft I lean my head, and listening, hark, 
To catch his words and all his fancies mark: 
And from that garden show of beauties take 
Whereof a posy I in verse may make. 
Thus I, that have no gardens of my own, 
There gather flowers that are newly blown. 

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With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of the North Carolina poet, Sally Thomas. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.