The disdainful Lady refusing to hear her Lover's Suit, he resolveth to forsake her. Odes. Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1880. The Poetical Works

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–42). The Poetical Works. 1880.

Odes

The disdainful Lady refusing to hear her Lover’s Suit, he resolveth to forsake her


NOW all of change
Must be my song,
And from my bond now must I break;
Since she so strange,
Unto my wrong,	5
Doth stop her ears, to hear me speak.
Yet none doth know
So well as she,
My grief, which can have no restraint;
That fain would follow,	10
Now needs must flee,
For fault of ear unto my plaint.
I am not he
By false assays,
Nor feigned faith can bear in hand;	15
Though most I see
That such always
Are best for to be understand.
But I that truth
Hath always meant,	20
Doth still proceed to serve in vain:
Desire pursueth
My time mispent,
And doth not pass upon my pain.
Of Fortune’s might	25
That each compels,
And me the most, it doth suffice;
Now for my right
To ask nought else
But to withdraw this enterprise.	30
And for the gain
Of that good hour,
Which of my woe shall be relief;
I shall refrain
By painful power,	35
The thing that most hath been my grief.
I shall not miss
To exercise
The help thereof which doth me teach,
That after this	40
In any wise
To keep right within my reach.
And she unjust
Which feareth not
In this her fame to be defiled,	45
Yet once I trust
Shall be my lot
To quite the craft that me beguiled.