It plainly doth declare, Who hath your heart in hold, Fain would ye find a cloak Yet both the flame and smoke Breaks out on every side. 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, So ed. 1.-ed. 1567, " cruelly." And though that still a wretched state Should pine my days unto the last, Yet I profess it willingly, 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 ye see The proof is not as they express. 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 Turns up the grains of gold already tried! For I with spur and sail go seek the Thames, Gainward the sun that show'th her wealthy pride, And to the town that Brutus sought by dreams, Like bended moon that leans her lusty side. My king, my country I seek, for whom I live: O, mighty Jove, the winds for this me give! 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, And in me 2 claim no more authority! And thereon spend thy many brittle darts. 1 Or "lieffer," as in ed. 1567, i. e. preferable. A Description of such a one as he would Love. A FACE that hould content me wondrous well With right good grace, so would I that it should 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 |