5 Yet I, alas!

Am in such case, That back I cannot go; But still forth trace

A patient pace,

And suffer secret woe.

6 For with the wind

My firèd mind Doth still inflame; And she unkind

That did me bind, Doth turn it all to game.

7 Yet can no pain

Make me refrain,

Nor here and there to range;

I shall retain
Hope to obtain

Her heart that is so strange.

8 But I require

The painful fire,

That oft doth make me sweat;

For all my ire,

With like desire,

To give her heart a heat.

9 Then she shall prove

How I her love,

And what I have offer'd;

Which should her move,
For to remove

The pains that I have suffer'd.

10 And better fee

Than she gave me,
She shall of me attain;

For whereas she

Show'd cruelty,

She shall my heart obtain.

THE DISDAINFUL LADY REFUSING TO HEAR HER LOVER'S SUIT, HE RESOLVETH TO FORSAKE HER.

1 Now all of change

Must be my song,

And from my bond now must I break;

Since she so strange,

Unto my wrong,

Doth stop her ears, to hear me speak.

2 Yet none doth know

So well as she,

My grief, which can have no restraint;
That fain would follow,

Now needs must flee,
For fault of ear unto my plaint.

3 I am not he

By false assays,

Nor feigned faith can bear in hand;1
Though most I see

That such always

Are best for to be understand.

4 But I, that truth

Hath always meant,

1Bear in hand:' to deceive

Doth still proceed to serve in vain:
Desire pursu❜th

My time misspent,

And doth not pass upon my pain.

THE ABSENT LOVER FINDETH ALL HIS
PAINS REDOUBLED.

1 ABSENCE, absenting causeth me to complain,
My sorrowful complaints abiding in distress;
And departing most privy increaseth my pain,

Thus live I uncomforted wrapped all in heaviness.

2 In heaviness I am wrapped, devoid of all solace,

Neither pastime nor pleasure can revive my dull wit, My spirits be all taken, and death doth me menace, With his fatal knife the thread for to kit.

3 For to kit the thread of this wretched life,
And shortly bring me out of this case;
I see it availeth not, yet must I be pensive,
Since Fortune from me hath turned her face.

4 Her face she hath turned with countenance contrarious,
And clean from her presence she hath exiled me,
In sorrow remaining as a man most dolorous,
Exempt from all pleasure and worldly felicity.

5 All worldly felicity now am I private,'
And left in desert most solitarily,
Wandering all about as one without mate;
My death approacheth; what remedy!

6 What remedy, alas! to rejoice my woful heart, With sighs suspiring 2 most ruefully;

Now welcome! I am ready to depart;

Farewell all pleasure! welcome pain and smart! 1 Private:' deprived. Suspiring:' sighing.

HE SEEKETH COMFORT IN PATIENCE.

PATIENCE! for I have wrong,

And dare not show wherein;
Patience shall be my song;

Since Truth can nothing win.
Patience then for this fit;

Hereafter comes not yet.

OF THE POWER OF LOVE OVER THE
YIELDEN LOVER.

1 WILL ye see what wonders Love hath wrought? Then come and look at me.

There need nowhere else to be sought,
In me ye may them see.

2 For unto that, that men may see
Most monstrous thing of kind,
Myself may best compared be;
Love hath me so assign'd.

3 There is a rock in the salt flood,
A rock of such nature,
That draweth the iron from the wood,
And leaveth the ship unsure.

4 She is the rock, the ship am I;

That rock my deadly foe,

That draweth me there where I must die,
And robbeth my heart me fro.

5 A bird there fleeth, and that but one,
Of her this thing ensueth