| |
| IF care do cause men cry, why do not I complain? | |
| If each man do bewail his woe, why shew not I my pain? | |
| Since that amongst them all, I dare well say is none | |
| So far from weal, so full of woe, or hath more cause to moan. | |
| For all things having life, sometime hath quiet rest; | 5 |
| The bearing ass, the drawing ox, and every other beast; | |
| The peasant, and the post, that serves at all assays; | |
| The ship-boy, and the galley-slave, have time to take their ease; | |
| Save I, alas! whom care, of force doth so constrain, | |
| To wail the day, and wake the night, continually in pain. | 10 |
| From pensiveness to plaint, from plaint to bitter tears, | |
| From tears to painful plaint again; and thus my life it wears. | |
| No thing under the sun, that I can hear or see, | |
| But moveth me for to bewail my cruel destiny. | |
| For where men do rejoice, since that I cannot so, | 15 |
| I take no pleasure in that place, it doubleth but my woe. | |
| And when I hear the sound of song or instrument, | |
| Methink each tune there doleful is, and helps me to lament. | |
| And if I see some have their most desired sight, | |
| ‘Alas!’ think I, ‘each man hath weal save I, most woful wight.’ | 20 |
| Then as the stricken deer withdraws himself alone, | |
| So do I seek some secret place, where I may make my moan. | |
| There do my flowing eyes shew forth my melting heart; | |
| So that the streams of those two wells right well declare my smart. | |
| And in those cares so cold, I force myself a heat | 25 |
| (As sick men in their shaking fits procure themselves to sweat) | |
| With thoughts, that for the time do much appease my pain: | |
| But yet they cause a farther fear, and breed my woe again. | |
| Methink within my thought I see right plain appear | |
| My heart’s delight, my sorrow’s leech, mine earthly goddess here, | 30 |
| With every sundry grace, that I have seen her have: | |
| Thus I within my woful breast her picture paint and grave. | |
| And in my thought I roll her beauties to and fro; | |
| Her laughing chere, her lively look, my heart that pierced so. | |
| Her strangeness when I sued her servant for to be; | 35 |
| And what she said, and how she smiled, when that she pitied me. | |
| Then comes a sudden fear that reaveth all my rest, | |
| Lest absence cause forgetfulness to sink within her breast. | |
| For when I think how far this earth doth us divide, | |
| Alas! me-seems love throws me down; I feel how that I slide. | 40 |
| But then I think again, ‘Why should I thus mistrust | |
| So sweet a wight, so sad and wise, that is so true and just? | |
| For loath she was to love, and wavering is she not; | |
| The farther off the more desired.’ Thus lovers tie their knot. | |
| So in despair and hope plung’d am I both up and down, | 45 |
| As is the ship with wind and wave, when Neptune list to frown: | |
| But as the watery showers delay the raging wind, | |
| So doth Good-hope clean put away despair out of my mind; | |
| And bids me for to serve, and suffer patiently: | |
| For what wot I the after weal that fortune wills to me. | 50 |
| For those that care do know, and tasted have of trouble, | |
| When passed is their woful pain, each joy shall seem them double. | |
| And bitter sends she now, to make me taste the better | |
| The pleasant sweet, when that it comes, to make it seem the sweeter. | |
| And so determine I to serve until my breath; | 55 |
| Yea, rather die a thousand times, than once to false my faith. | |
| And if my feeble corpse, through weight of woful smart | |
| Do fail, or faint, my will it is that still she keep my heart. | |
| And when this carcass here to earth shall be refar’d, | |
| I do bequeath my wearied ghost to serve her afterward. | 60 |
| |
