Farewell to the Court; before 1593

LIKE truthless dreams, so are my joys expired,

And past return are all my dandled days,

My love misled, and fancy quite retired;

Of all which past, the sorrow only stays.

My lost delights, now clean from sight of land,

Have left me all alone in unknown ways,

My mind to woe, my life in fortune’s hand;

Of all which past, the sorrow only stays.

As in a country strange without companion,

I only wail the wrong of death’s delays,

Whose sweet spring spent, whose summer well nigh done;

Of all which past, the sorrow only stays;

Whom care forewarns, ere age and winter cold,

To haste me hence to find my fortune’s fold.