| |
| HE 1 that his mirth hath lost, | |
| Whose comfort is dismayed, | |
| Whose hope is vain, whose faith is scorned, | |
| Whose trust is all betrayed, | |
| |
| If he have held them dear, | 5 |
| And cannot cease to moan, | |
| Come, let him take his place by me; | |
| He shall not rue alone. | |
| |
| But if the smallest sweet | |
| Be mixed with all his sour; | 10 |
| If in the day, the month, the year, | |
| He feel one lightening hour, | |
| |
| Then rest he by himself; | |
| He is no mate for me, | |
| Whose hope is fallen, whose succour void, | 15 |
| Whose hap his death must be. | |
| |
| Yet not the wishèd death, | |
| Which hath no plaint nor lack, | |
| Which, making free the better part, | |
| Is only nature’s wrack. | 20 |
| |
| O no! that were too well; | |
| My death is of the mind, | |
| Which always yields extremest pains, | |
| And leaves the worst behind. | |
| |
| As one that lives in show, | 25 |
| But inwardly doth die, | |
| Whose knowledge is a bloody field | |
| Where all hope slain doth lie; | |
| |
| Whose heart the altar is; | |
| Whose spirit, the sacrifice | 30 |
| Unto the powers, whom to appease | |
| No sorrow can suffice. | |
| |
| My fancies are like thorns, | |
| On which I go by night; | |
| Mine arguments are like an host | 35 |
| Which force hath put to flight. | |
| |
| My sense is passion’s spy; | |
| My thoughts like ruins old | |
| Of famous Carthage, or the town | |
| Which Sinon bought and sold; | 40 |
| |
| Which still before mine eyes | |
| My mortal fall do lay, | |
| Whom love and fortune once advanced, | |
| And now hath cast away. | |
| |
| O thoughts, no thoughts, but wounds, | 45 |
| Sometime the seat of joy, | |
| Sometime the seat of quiet rest, | |
| But now of all annoy. | |
| |
| I sowed the soil of peace; | |
| My bliss was in the spring; | 50 |
| And day by day I ate the fruit | |
| Which my life’s tree did bring. | |
| |
| To nettles now my corn, | |
| My field is turned to flint, | |
| Where, sitting in the cypress shade, | 55 |
| I read the hyacint. 2 | |
| |
| The peace, the rest, the life, | |
| That I enjoyed before | |
| Came to my lot, that by the loss | |
| My smart might sting the more. | 60 |
| |
| So to unhappy men | |
| The best frames to the worst; | |
| O time, O place, O words, O looks, | |
| Dear then; but now accurst: | |
| |
| In was stands my delight; | 65 |
| In is and shall, my woe; | |
| My horror fastens on the yea, | |
| My hope hangs on the no. | |
| |
| I look for no relief; | |
| Relief would come too late; | 70 |
| Too late I find, I find too well, | |
| Too well stood my estate. | |
| |
| Behold such is the end; | |
| What thing may there be sure? | |
| O, nothing else but plaints and moans | 75 |
| Do to the end endure. | |
| |
| Forsaken first was I, | |
| Then utterly forgotten; | |
| And he that came not to my faith, | |
| Lo, my reward hath gotten. | 80 |
| |
| Then, Love, where is the sauce | |
| That makes thy torment sweet? | |
| Where is the cause that some have thought | |
| Their death through thee but meet? | |
| |
| The stately chaste disdain, | 85 |
| The secret shamefastness, | |
| The grace reserved, the common light | |
| Which shines in worthiness. | |
| |
| O would it were not so, | |
| Or I it might excuse! | 90 |
| O would the wrath of jealousy | |
| My judgment might abuse! | |
| |
| O frail inconstant kind, | |
| O safe in trust to no man! | |
| No women angels be, and lo! | 95 |
| My mistress is a woman! | |
| |
| Yet hate I but the fault, | |
| And not the faulty one, | |
| Nor can I rid me of the bands | |
| Wherein I lie alone. | 100 |
| |
| Alone I lie, whose like | |
| Was never seen as yet; | |
| The prince, the poor, the old, the young, | |
| The fond, the full of wit. | |
| |
| Hers still remain must I, | 105 |
| By wrong, by death, by shame; | |
| I cannot blot out of my mind | |
| The love wrought in her name. | |
| |
| I cannot set at nought | |
| That once I held so dear; | 110 |
| I cannot make it seem so far | |
| That is indeed so near. | |
| |
| Not that I mean henceforth | |
| This strange will to profess, | |
| As one that would betray such troth, | 115 |
| And build on fickleness. | |
| |
| But it shall never fail | |
| That my faith bare in hand; | |
| I gave my word, my word gave me; | |
| Both word and gift must stand. | 120 |
| |
| Sith then it must be thus, | |
| And thus is all-to ill, | |
| I yield me captive to my curse, | |
| My hard fate to fulfil. | |
| |
| The solitary woods | 125 |
| My city shall become; | |
| The darkest den shall be my lodge, | |
| Wherein I’ll rest or roam. | |
| |
| Of heben 3 black my board; | |
| The worms my feast shall be, | 130 |
| On which my carcass shall be fed | |
| Till they do feed on me; | |
| |
| My wine of Niobe, | |
| My bed of craggy rock, | |
| The serpent’s hiss my harmony, | 135 |
| The shrieking owl my clock. | |
| |
| My exercise nought else | |
| But raging agonies; | |
| My books of spiteful Fortune’s foils | |
| And dreary tragedies. | 140 |
| |
| My walk the paths of plaint, | |
| My prospect into hell, | |
| Where wretched Sisyphe and his pheres | |
| In endless pains do dwell. | |
| |
| And though I seem to use | 145 |
| The poet’s feignèd style, | |
| To figure forth my rueful plight, | |
| My fall or my exile, | |
| |
| Yet is my grief not feigned, | |
| In which I starve and pine; | 150 |
| Who feels it most shall find it least | |
| If his compare with mine. | |
| |
| My Muse if any ask, | |
| Whose grievous case was such? | |
| DY ERE thou let his name be known; | 155 |
| His folly shows so much. | |
| |
| But best ’twere thee to hide, | |
| And never come to light, | |
| For on the earth may none but I | |
| This action sound aright. | 160 |
| Miserum est fuisse. | |
