Tho' hide it fain ye would, It plainly doth declare, Fain would ye find a cloak Ye cannot love so guide The Lover determineth to serve faithfully. SINCE Love will needs that I shall love, Of very force I must agree: And since no chance may it remove, In wealth and in adversity, I shall alway myself apply To serve and suffer patiently. Though for good-will I find but hate, And cruelty my life to waste; So ed. I.-ed. 1567, "cruelly." And though that still a wretched state Should pine my days unto the last, To serve and suffer patiently. There is no grief, no smart, no wo, And, whatsoever me befall, I do profess it willingly, To serve and suffer patiently. The Lover prayeth not to be disdained, refused, mistrusted, nor forsaken. DISDAIN me not without desert, Refuse me not without cause why: Since that by lot of fantasy This careful knot needs knit I must. Mistrust me not, though some there be Forsake me not till I deserve; Nor hate me not till I offend; But since ye know what I intend, Disdain me not that am your own; Of his return from Spain. TAGUS farewell, that westward with thy streams Gainward the sun that show'th her wealthy pride, The Courtier's Life. IN court to serve decked with fresh array, Of sugar'd meats feeling the sweet repast; The life in banquets, and sundry kinds of play Amid the press of worldly looks to waste ;— Hath with it join'd oft-times such bitter taste, That whoso joys such kind of life to hold, In prison joys fetter'd with chains of gold. A renouncing of Love. FAREWELL, Love, and all thy laws for ever, Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore, 2 And in me claim no more authority! With idle youth go use thy property, And thereon spend thy many brittle darts. Me list no longer rotten boughs to climb. Or "lieffer," as in ed. 1567, i. e. preferable. * Ed. 1567,"time." A Description of such a one as he would love. A FACE that should content me wondrous well Of lively look, all grief for to repel; With right good grace, so would I that it should Speak, without word, such words as none can tell. Her tress also should be of crisped gold. With wit, and these, perchance I might be tried, And knit again with knot that should not slide. Of the Courtiers Life, written to John Poins. MINE Own John Poins! since ye delight to know The causes why that homeward I me draw, And flee the press of courts, whereso they go, Rather than to live thrall under the awe Of lordly looks, wrapped within my cloak, It is not that because I scorn or mock The power of them whom Fortune here hath lent Charge over us, of right to strike the stroke. But true it is that I have always meant |