| |
| THE GENTLE season of the year | |
| Hath made my blooming branch appear, | |
| And beautified the land with flowers; | |
| The air doth savour with delight, | |
| The heavens do smile to see the sight, | 5 |
| And yet mine eyes augments their showers. | |
| |
| The meads are mantled all with green, | |
| The trembling leaves have clothed the treen, | |
| The birds with feathers new do sing; | |
| But I, poor soul! when wrong doth wrack, | 10 |
| Attire myself in mourning black, | |
| Whose leaf doth fall amid his spring! | |
| |
| And, as you see the scarlet rose | |
| In his sweet prime his buds disclose, | |
| Whose hue is with the sun revivèd; | 15 |
| So, in the April of mine age, | |
| My lively colours do assuage, | |
| Because my sunshine is deprivèd. | |
| |
| My heart, that wonted was of yore | |
| Light as the winds abroad to soar, | 20 |
| Amongst the buds, when beauty springs, | |
| Now only hovers over you; | |
| As doth the bird that’s taken new | |
| And mourns when all her neighbours sings. | |
| |
| When every man is bent to sport, | 25 |
| Then pensive I alone resort | |
| Into some solitary walk; | |
| As doth the doleful turtle-dove, | |
| Who, having lost her faithful love, | |
| Sits mourning on some withered stalk. | 30 |
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| There to myself I do recount | |
| How far my woes my joys surmount, | |
| How Love requiteth me with hate; | |
| How all my pleasures end in pain, | |
| How hate doth say my hope is vain, | 35 |
| How fortune frowns upon my state. | |
| |
| And in this mood, charged with despair, | |
| With vapoured sighs I dim the air, | |
| And to the gods make this request:— | |
| That, by the ending of my life, | 40 |
| I may have truce with this strange strife, | |
| And bring my soul to better rest. | |
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