to do any acceptable service, though the will be at all times most ready. In token whereof, your Lordship shall at all times perceive by simple things that my little wit shall be able to invent, that if mine heart could do you any service, no labour or travail should withhold me from doing my duty; and that if busy labour and the heart might be able to pay the duty that love oweth, your Lordship should in no point find me ingrate or unthankful. And to declare this my ready will, I have dedicated unto your name this little treatise, which, after I had perused and by the advice of others (better learned than myself) determined to put it in print, that the noble fame of so worthy a Knight as was the author hereof, Sir Thomas Wyatt, should not perish but remain, as well for his singular learning as valiant deeds in martial feats, I thought that I could not find a more worthy patron for such a man's work than your Lordship, whom I have always known to be of so godly a zeal to the furtherance of God's holy and sacred Gospel, most humbly beseeching your good Lordship herein to accept my good will, and to esteem me as one that wisheth unto the same all honour, health, and prosperous success.
Your good Lordship's
most humble at commandment.
The great Macedon that out of Persia chased
Darius, of whose huge power all Asia rang;
In the rich ark if Homer's rhymes he placed,
Who feigned gests of heathen princes sang;
What holy grave, what worthy sepulture
To Wyatt's Psalms should Christians then purchase,
Where he doth paint the lively faith and pure,
The steadfast hope, the sweet return to grace
Of just David by perfect penitence;
Where rulers may see in a mirrour clear,
The bitter fruits of false concupiscence,
How Jewry bought Urias' death full dear.
In princes hearts God's scourge y-printed deep,
Ought them awake out of their sinful sleep.
THE PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR.
LOVE, to give law unto his subjects' hearts,
Stood in the eyes of Batsabé the bright;
And in a look anon himself converts
Cruelly pleasant before King David's sight,
First dazed his eyes, and further-forth he starts
With venom'd breath, as softly as he might
Touches his sinews, and overruns his bones
With creeping fire, sparkled for the nones.
And when he saw that kindled was the flame,
The moist poison in his heart he lanced,
So that the soul did tremble with the same;
And in this brawl as he stood entranced,
Yielding unto the figure and the frame,
That those fair eyes had in his presence glanced;
The form, that Love had printed in his breast,
He honoureth as a thing of thinges best.
So that, forgot the wisdom and forecast,
Which woe to realms, when that the King doth
Forgetting eke God's Majesty as fast,
Yea and his own; forthwith he doth to make
Urie to go into the field in haste,
Urie, I say, that was his jewel's make,
Under pretence of certain victory,
For the enemies' swords a ready prey to be.
Whereby he may enjoy her out of doubt,
Whom more than God or himself he mindeth:
And after he had brought this thing about,
And of that lust possess'd himself, he findeth
That hath and doth reverse and clean turn out
Kings from kingdoms, and cities undermineth;
He blinded thinks, this train so blind and close,
To blind all things, that nought may it disclose.
But Nathan hath spied out this treachery,
With rueful cheer; and sets afore his face
The great offence, outrage, and injury,
That he hath done to God, as in this case,
By murder for to cloak adultery:
He sheweth eke from heaven the threats, alas!
So sternly sore this Prophet, this Nathan,
That all amazed was this woful man.
Like him that meets with horror and with fear;
The heat doth straight forsake the limbes cold,
The colour eke droopeth down from his cheer;
So doth he feel his fire manifold,
His heat, his lust, his pleasure all in fere
Consume and waste: and straight his crown of gold,
His purple pall, his sceptre he lets fall,
And to the ground he throweth himself withal.
Then pompous pride of state, and dignity
Forthwith rebates repentant humbleness:
Thinner vile cloth than clotheth poverty
Doth scantly hide and clad his nakedness:
His fair hoar beard of reverent gravity,
With ruffled hair, knowing his wickedness:
More like was he the selfsame repentance
Than stately prince of worldly governance.
His harp he taketh in hand to be his guide,
Wherewith he offereth plaints, his soul to save,
That from his heart distills on every side.
Withdrawing himself into a dark deep cave
Within the ground, wherein he might him hide,
Flying the light, as in prison or grave;
In which, as soon as David entered had,
The dark horror did make his soul adrad.
But he, without prolonging or delay
Of that, which might his Lord his God appease,
Falleth on his knees, and with his harp, I say,
Afore his breast yfraughted with disease
Of stormy sighs, deep draughts of his decay,
Dressed upright, seeking to counterpoise
His song with sighs, and touching of the strings,
With tender heart, lo, thus to God he sings.
O LORD! since in my mouth thy mighty name
Suffereth itself, my Lord, to name and call,
Here hath my heart hope taken by the same;
That the repentance, which I have and shall,
May at thy hand seek mercy, as the thing
Of only comfort of wretched sinners all:
Whereby I dare with humble bemoaning,
By thy goodness, this thing of thee require:
Chastise me not for my deserving
According to thy just conceived ire.
O Lord! I dread: and that I did not dread
I me repent; and evermore desire
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