CHARGING OF HIS LOUE AS VNPITEOUS AND LOUING
Ir amorous faith, or if an hart vnfained,
A swete langour, a greate louely desire,
If honest wyll kindled in gentle fire,
If long errour in a blind mase chained,
If in my visage eche thought distained,
Or my sparkeling voice, lower or hier,
Which feare and shame so wofully doth tyre,
If pale colour which loue alas hath stained,
If to haue another then my self more dere,
If waleing or sighing continually,
With sorowful anger feding busily,
If burning farr of, and if frising nere,
Are cause that I by loue my self destroy,
Yours is the fault, and mine the great annoy.
FAREWELL loue, and all thy lawes for ever,
Thy bayted hookes shall tangle me no more:
Senec and Plato call me from thy lore,
To parfit welth, my witt for to endeuer.
In blinde errour when I did perseuer,
Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,
Taught me in trifles that I set no store;
But scapte forth thence since libertie is leuer :
Therefore, farewell, go trouble yonger harts,
And in me claime noe more auctoritie:
With ydle youth goe vse thy propertie,
And theron spend thy many brittle dartes.
For hitherto though I haue lost my time,
Me list no lenger rotten boughs to clime.
D d
THE LOUER FORSAKETH HIS VNKINDE LOUE.
My hart I gaue thee, not to doe it pain,
But to preserue, lo, it to thee was taken,
I serued thee, not that I should be forsaken,
But that I should receiue reward againe,
I was content, thy seruant to remaine;
And not to be repayed on this fashion.
Now since in thee there is none other reason,
Displease thee not, if that I do refrain.
Unsaciat of my wo and thy desire;
Assured by craft for to excuse thy fault :
But sins it pleaseth thee to fain default,
Farewell I say, departing from the fire.
For he that doth beleue, bearing in hand,
Ploweth in the water, and soweth in the sand.
THE LOUER DESCRIBETH HIS RESTLESSE STATE.
THE flaming sighes that boyle within my breast,
Sometime break forth, and they can well declare
The hartes vnrest, and how that it doth fare,
The paine therof, the griefe, and all the rest.
The waterred eyen from whence the teares do fall,
Do feel some force or elce they would be dry,
The wasted flesh of colour ded can try,
And somtime tell what swetness is in gall.
And he that lust to see, and to discearne,
How care can force within a wearied mind,
Come he to me, I am that place assinde;
But for all this, no force, it doth no harme,
The wounde, alas, happe in some other place,
From whence noe toole away the skarre can race.
But you that of such like have had your part,
Can best be iudge. Wherefore my friend so dere,
I thought it good my state should now appere
To you, and that there is no great desart.
And wheras you in weighty matters great,
Of fortune saw the shadow that you know,
For trifling thinges I now am stricken so,
That though I fele my hart doth wound and beat,
I sit alone, saue on the second day
My feuer comes, with whome I spend my time
In burning heat while that she list assigne.
And who hath helth and libertie alwaie,
Let him thank God, and let him not prouoke,
To haue the like of this my painfull stroke.
THE LOUER LAMENTES THE DEATH OF HIS LOUE.
THE pillar perisht is wherto I lent,
The strongest stay of mine vnquiet minde;
The like of it no man again can finde,
From east to west still seking though he went,
To mine vnhappe. For happe away hath rent
Of all my ioy the very bark and rinde,
And I (alas!) by chance am thus assinde,
Bayly to moorne till death do it relent.
But sins that thus it is by desteny,
What can I more but haue a wofull hart;
My penne in plaint, my voyce in carefull crye,
My mynde in wo, my body full of smart,
And I my self, my self alwaies to hate,
Tyll dreadfull death doe ease my dolefull state.
THE LOUER SENDETH SIGHES TO MOUE HIS SUTE.
Go burning sighes unto the frosen hart,
Goe break the yse which pities painfull dart
Might never perce, and if that mortall praier
In heauen be heard, at lest yet I desire
That death, or mercy, end my wofull smart:
Take with thee pain, whereof I haue my part,
And eke the flame from which I cannot start.
And leaue me then in rest, I you require.
Goe burning sighes fulfill that I desire,
I must go worke, I see, by craft and art,
For truth and faith in her is laid apart:
Alas I cannot therefore now assaile her,
With pitifull complaint and scalding fier,
That from my brest deceiuably doth start.
COMPLAINT OF THE ABSENCE OF HIS LOUE.
So feeble is the thred that doth the burden stay, Of my poor life, in heauy plight that falleth in de
That but it haue elswhere some ayde or some succours,
The running spindle of my fate anon shall end his
For since thunhappy houre that byd me to depart, From my swete weale, one only hope hath stayed my life apart,
Which doth perswade such words vnto my sored minde,
Maintaine thy selfe, O wofull wight, some better luck to finde:
For though thou be depriued from thy desired
Who can thee tell, if thy returne be for thy more
Or who can tell, thy loss if thou mayst once re
Some pleasant hower thy wo may wrap, and thee defend and couer.
Thus in this trust, as yet it hath my life sustained, But now (alas) I see it faint, and I by trust am trained.
The tyme doth flete, and I see how the howers do
So fast, that I haue scant the space to markę my comming end.
Westward the Sunne from out the east scant shews
When in the west he hies him strayghte within the dark of night;
And comes as fast, where he began his path awry, From east to west, from west to east, so doth his iourney lye.
The lyfe so short, so frayle, that mortall men liue here ;
Soe great a weight, so heauy charge the bodyes that we bere;
That when I think vpon the distaunce and the
That doth so farre deuide me from
I know not how t'attaine the winges that I require, To lyft me up, that I might fly, to follow my de
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