| |
| LIKE as the wind with raging blast | |
| Doth cause each tree to bow and bend; | |
| Even so do I spend my time in waste, | |
| My life consuming unto an end. | |
| For as the flame by force doth quench the fire, | 5 |
| And running streams consume the rain; | |
| Even so do I myself desire | |
| To augment my grief and deadly pain. | |
| Whereas I find that what is what, | |
| And cold is cold by course of kind, | 10 |
| So shall I knit an endless knot; | |
| Such fruit in love, alas! I find. | |
| When I foresaw those crystal streams, | |
| Whose beauty doth cause my mortal wound, | |
| I little thought within those beams | 15 |
| So sweet a venom for to have found. | |
| I feel and see my own decay; | |
| As one that beareth flame in his breast, | |
| Forgetful thought to put away | |
| The thing that breedeth my unrest. | 20 |
| Like as the fly doth seek the flame, | |
| And afterward playeth in the fire, | |
| Who findeth her woe, and seeketh her game, | |
| Whose grief doth grow of her own desire. | |
| Like as the spider doth draw her line, | 25 |
| As labour lost so is my suit; | |
| The gain is hers, the loss is mine: | |
| Of evil-sown seed such is the fruit. | |
| |
