| Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–47). The Poetical Works. 1880. | | | | Songs and Sonnets | | The Lover excuseth himself of suspected Change |
| | | THOUGH I regarded not | |
| The promise made by me; | |
| Or passed not to spot | |
| My faith and honesty: | |
| Yet were my fancy strange, | 5 |
| And wilful will to wite, | |
| If I sought now to change | |
| A falcon for a kite. | |
| |
| All men might well dispraise | |
| My wit and enterprise, | 10 |
| If I esteemed a pese 1 | |
| Above a pearl in price: | |
| Or judged the owl in sight | |
| The sparhawk to excel; | |
| Which flieth but in the night, | 15 |
| As all men know right well. | |
| |
| Or if I sought to sail | |
| Into the brittle port, | |
| Where anchor hold doth fail | |
| To such as do resort; | 20 |
| And leave the haven sure, | |
| Where blows no blustering wind; | |
| No fickleness in ure, 2 | |
| So far-forth as I find. | |
| |
| No! think me not so light, | 25 |
| Nor of so churlish kind, | |
| Though it lay in my might | |
| My bondage to unbind, | |
| That I would leave the hind | |
| To hunt the gander’s foe. | 30 |
| No! no! I have no mind | |
| To make exchanges so. | |
| |
| Nor yet to change at all; | |
| For think, it may not be | |
| That I should seek to fall | 35 |
| From my felicity. | |
| Desirous for to win, | |
| And loth for to forego; | |
| Or new change to begin; | |
| How may all this be so? | 40 |
| |
| The fire it cannot freeze, | |
| For it is not his kind; | |
| Nor true love cannot lese | |
| The constance of the mind. | |
| Yet as soon shall the fire | 45 |
| Want heat to blaze and burn; | |
| As I, in such desire, | |
| Have once a thought to turn. | |
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