1.
If care do cause men cry,
Why do not I complain?
If each man do bewail his woe,
Why show I not my pain?
2.
Since that amongst them all,
I dare well say is none.
So far from weal, so full of woe,
Or hath more cause to moan.
3.
For all things having life,
Sometime hath quiet rest;
The bearing ass, the drawing ox
And every other beast;
4.
The peasant and the post,
That serve at all assays;
The ship boy and the galley slave,
Have time to take their ease;
5.
Save I, alas! whom care
Of force doth so constrain
To wail the day, and wake the night,
Continually in pain.
6.
From pensiveness to plaint,
From plaint to bitter tears,
From tears to painful plaint again,
And thus my life it wears.
7.
No thing under the sun
That I can hear or see,
But moveth me for to bewail
My cruel destiny.
8.
For where men do rejoice,
Since that I cannot so,
I take no pleasure in that place,
It doubleth but my woe.
9.
And when I hear the sound
Of song or instrument,
Methink each tune there doleful is,
And helps me to lament.
10.
And if I see some have
Their most desired sight,
‘Alas!’ think I, ‘each man hath weal,
Save I, most woeful wight.’
11.
Then as the stricken deer
Withdraws himself alone,
So do I seek some secret place,
Where I may make my moan.
12.
There do my flowing eyes
Shew forth my melting heart,
So that the streams of those two wells
Right well declare my smart.
13.
And in those cares so cold,
I force myself a heat
(As sick men in their shaking fits
Procure themselves to sweat).
14.
With thoughts, that for the time
Do much appease my pain,
But yet they cause a farther fear,
And breed my woe again.
15.
Methink within my thought
I see right plain appear
My heart’s delight, my sorrow’s leech,
Mine earthly goddess here,
16.
With every sundry grace
That I have seen her have,
Thus I within my woeful breast
Her picture paint and grave.
17.
And in my thought I roll
Her beauties to and fro;
Her laughing cheere, her lovely look,
My heart that pierced so,
18.
Her strangeness when I sued
Her servant for to be,
And what she said, and how she smiled,
When that she pitied me.
19.
Then comes a sudden fear
That riveth all my rest,
Lest absence cause forgetfulness
To sink within her breast.
20.
For when I think how far
This earth doth us divide,
Alas! meseems love throws me down;
I feel how that I slide.
21.
But then I think again,
‘Why should I thus mistrust;
So sweet a wight, so sad and wise,
That is so true and just?
22.
‘For loath she was to love,
And wavering is she not;
The farther off the more desired.’
Thus lovers tie their knot.
23.
So in despair and hope
Plunged am I both up and down,
As is the ship with wind and wave,
When Neptune list to frown.
24.
But as the watery showers
Delay the raging wind,
So doth good hope clean put away
Despair out of my mind;
25.
And bids me for to serve
And suffer patiently:
For what wot I the after weal
That fortune wills to me.
26.
For those that care do know,
And tasted have of trouble,
When passed is their woful pain,
Each joy shall seem them double.
27.
And bitter sends she now
To make me taste the better
The pleasant sweet, when that it comes,
To make it seem the sweeter.
28.
And so determine I
To serve until my breath;
Yea, rather die a thousand times
Than once to false my faith.
29.
And if my feeble corpse,
Through weight of woful smart,
Do fail or faint, my will it is
That still she keep my heart.
30.
And when this carcass here
To earth shall be referred,
I do bequeath my wearied ghost
To serve her afterward.