The Reformation notion that the Scriptures and not the Church and its prelates have authority in matters of religion is demonstrated in the following : .
The Church is put in fault ; .
The prelates been so high, .
They say, and look so high .
As though they woulde fly .
Above the starry sky." .
Although English Reformation avoids emotional language and imagery, Sir Thomas Wyatt seems to vividly indulge in them, especially in feelings of mourning and grief in his poem "In Mornyng Wyse" :.
And thus ffarwell eche one in hartye wyse !.
The Axe ys home, your hedys be in the stret;.
The trykklyngge tearys dothe ffall so from my yes.
I skarse may wryt, my paper ys so wet.
But what can hepe when dethe hath playd his part,.
Thoughe naturs cours wyll thus lament and mone.
Leve sobes therffor, and every crestyn hart.
Pray ffor the sowlis of those be dead and goone.
The reference to soberness in the one but last line, can also be found in the epistolary address to his friend, "Myne owne John Poyntz" in which Wyatt purports to "fle the presse of courtes. | Rather then to lyve thrall under the awe | Of lordly lookes", though it clearly does not seem to forbid the Christian valediction of mourning. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Wyatt's junior by fourteen years, paid posthumous tribute to the poet. Surrey's poem makes oblique reference to Wyatt's "witnesse of faith" as part of an explicitly Christian epitaph in which piety counts more than courtship : "But to the heavens that simple is fled | Which left with such as covet Christ to know | Witness of faith that never shall be dead, | ." . .
In Sir Philip Sidney's "Leave Me, O Love", the light represents the sun which in turn represents the most important part of Heaven (eternal light and love). The mind, however, should on earth "aspire to higher things" (l.2), while the lover exclaims introspectively "let that light be thy guide" (l.9), for the soul of a true believer should avert earthly matter in order to "seeketh heav"n" (l.