| |
| AMID my bale I bathe in bliss, | |
| I swim in heaven, I sink in hell; | |
| I find amends for every miss | |
| And yet my moan no tongue can tell. | |
| I live and love, what would you more? | 5 |
| As never lover lived before. | |
| |
| I laugh sometimes with little lust, | |
| So jest I oft and feel no joy; | |
| Mine ease is builded all on trust, | |
| And yet mistrust breeds my annoy. | 10 |
| I live and lack, I lack and have, | |
| I have and miss the thing I crave. | |
| |
| These things seem strange, yet are they true; | |
| Believe me, sweet, my state is such, | |
| One pleasure which I would eschew | 15 |
| Both slakes my grief and breeds my grutch. | |
| So doth one pain which I would shun | |
| Renew my joys, where grief begun. | |
| |
| Then like the lark that passed the night | |
| In heavy sleep, with cares oppressed, | 20 |
| Yet when she spies the pleasant light | |
| She sends sweet notes from out her breast: | |
| So sing I now because I think | |
| How joys approach when sorrows shrink. | |
| |
| And as fair Philomene, again, | 25 |
| Can watch and sing when others sleep, | |
| And taketh pleasure in her pain | |
| To wray the woe that makes her weep: | |
| So sing I now for to bewray | |
| The loathsome life I lead alway. | 30 |
| |
| The which to thee, dear wench, I write, | |
| That knows’t my mirth, but not my moan. | |
| I pray God grant thee deep delight, | |
| To live in joys when I am gone. | |
| I cannot live, it will not be, | 35 |
| I die to think to part from thee. | |
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