| |
| THE SUN hath twice brought forth his tender green, | |
| Twice clad the earth in lively lustiness; | |
| Once have the winds the trees despoiled clean, | |
| And once again begins their cruelness; | |
| Since I have hid under ray breast the harm | 5 |
| That never shall recover healthfulness. | |
| The winter’s hurt recovers with the warm; | |
| The parched green restored is with shade; | |
| What warmth, alas! may serve for to disarm | |
| The frozen heart, that mine in flame hath made? | 10 |
| What cold again is able to restore | |
| My fresh green years, that wither thus and fade? | |
| Alas! I see nothing hath hurt so sore | |
| But Time, in time, reduceth a return: | |
| In time my harm increaseth more and more, | 15 |
| And seems to have my cure always in scorn. | |
| Strange kinds of death in life that I do try! | |
| At hand, to melt; far off in flame to burn. | |
| And like as time list to my cure apply, | |
| So doth each place my comfort clean refuse. | 20 |
| All thing alive, that seeth the heavens with eye, | |
| With cloak of night, may cover, and excuse | |
| It self from travail of the day’s unrest. | |
| Save I, alas! against all others use, | |
| That then stir up the torments of my breast; | 25 |
| And curse each star as causer of my fate. | |
| And when the sun hath eke the dark opprest, | |
| And brought the day, it doth nothing abate | |
| The travails of mine endless smart and pain. | |
| For then, as one that hath the light in hate, | 30 |
| I wish for night, more covertly to plain; | |
| And me withdraw from every haunted place, | |
| Lest by my chere my chance appear too plain. | |
| And in my mind I measure pace by pace, | |
| To seek the place where I myself had lost, | 35 |
| That day that I was tangled in the lace, | |
| In seeming slack, that knitteth ever most. | |
| But never yet the travail of my thought, | |
| Of better state, could catch a cause to boast. | |
| For if I found, some time that I have sought, | 40 |
| Those stars by whom I trusted of the port, | |
| My sails do fall, and I advance right nought; | |
| As anchor’d fast my spirits do all resort | |
| To stand agazed, and sink in more and more 1 | |
| The deadly harm which she doth take in sport. | 45 |
| Lo! if I seek, how I do find my sore! | |
| And if I flee, I carry with me still | |
| The venom’d shaft, which doth his force restore | |
| By haste of flight; and I may plain my till | |
| Unto myself, unless this careful song | 50 |
| Print in your heart some parcel of my tene. 2 | |
| For I, alas! in silence all too long, | |
| Of mine old hurt yet feel the wound but green. | |
| Rue on my Life; or else your cruel wrong | |
| Shall well appear, and by my death be seen. | 55 |
