That whom I should

Speak and behold,

It driveth me still behind.

My wits be past,

My life doth waste,

My comfort is exiled;

And I in haste,

Am like to taste

How love hath me beguiled.

Unless that right

May in her sight

Obtain pity and grace;

Why should a wight
Have beauty bright,
If mercy have no place.

Yet I, alas!

Am in such case;

That back I cannot go ;

But still forth trace

A patient pace,

And suffer secret woe.

For with the wind

My fired mind

Doth still inflame;

And she unkind

That did me bind,

Doth turn it all to game.

Yet can no pain

Make me refrain,

Nor here and there to range;

I shall retain

Hope to obtain

Her heart that is so strange.

But I require

The painful fire,

That oft doth make me sweat;

For all my ire,

With like desire,

To give her heart a heat.

Then she shall prove

How I her love,

And what I have offer'd;

Which should her move,

For to remove

The pains that I have suffer'd.

And better fee

Than she gave me,

She shall of me attain;

For whereas she

Shewed cruelty,

She shall

my

heart obtain.

THE DISDAINFUL LADY REFUSING TO HEAR

HER LOVER'S SUIT, HE RESOLVETH TO FORSAKE HER.

Now all of change

Must be my song,

And from my bond now must I break ;

Since she so strange,

Unto my wrong,

Doth stop her ears, to hear me speak.

Yet none doth know

So well as she,

My grief, which can have no restraint;

That fain would follow,

Now needs must flee,

For fault of ear unto my plaint.

I am not he

By false assays,

Nor feigned faith can bear in hand;

Though most I see

That such always

Are best for to be understand.

VOL. II.

L

But I that truth

Hath always meant,

Doth still proceed to serve in vain :
Desire pursueth

My time mispent,

And doth not pass upon my pain.

Of Fortune's might

That each compels,

And me the most, it doth suffice;

Now for my right

To ask nought else

But to withdraw this enterprise.

And for the gain

Of that good hour,

Which of my woe shall be relief;

I shall refrain

By painful power,

The thing that most hath been my grief.

I shall not miss

To exercise

The help thereof which doth me teach, That after this

In any wise

To keep right within my reach.

And she unjust

Which feareth not

In this her fame to be defiled,

Yet once I trust

Shall be my lot

To quite the craft that me beguiled.

THE ABSENT LOVER FINDETH ALL HIS
PAINS REDOUBLED.

ABSENCE, absenting causeth me to complain,
My sorrowful complaints abiding in distress;
And departing most privy increaseth my pain,
Thus live I uncomforted wrapped all in heaviness.
In heaviness I am wrapped, devoid of all solace,
Neither pastime nor pleasure can revive my dull wit,
My spirits be all taken, and death doth me menace,
With his fatal knife the thread for to kit.

For to cut the thread of this wretched life,
And shortly bring me out of this case;
I see it availeth not, yet must I be pensive,
Since fortune from me hath turned her face.
Her face she hath turned with countenance

trarious,

con->

And clean from her presence she hath exiled me,
In sorrow remaining as a man most dolorous,
Exempt from all pleasure and worldly felicity.
All worldly felicity now am I private,
And left in desart most solitarily,

Wandering all about as one without mate;
My death approacheth; what remedy!

What remedy, alas! to rejoice my woful heart,

With sighs suspiring most ruefully;

Now welcome! I am ready to depart;

Farewell all pleasure! welcome pain and smart!