| Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900. |
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| Anonymous. 1557 |
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54. To Her Sea-faring Lover
Tottel's Miscellany
? by John Heywood |
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| SHALL I thus ever long, and be no whit the neare? | |
| And shall I still complain to thee, the which me will not hear? | |
| Alas! say nay! say nay! and be no more so dumb, | |
| But open thou thy manly mouth and say that thou wilt come: | |
| Whereby my heart may think, although I see not thee, | 5 |
| That thou wilt come—thy word so sware—if thou a live man be. | |
| The roaring hugy waves they threaten my poor ghost, | |
| And toss thee up and down the seas in danger to be lost. | |
| Shall they not make me fear that they have swallowed thee? | |
| —But as thou art most sure alive, so wilt thou come to me. | 10 |
| Whereby I shall go see thy ship ride on the strand, | |
| And think and say Lo where he comes and Sure here will he land: | |
| And then I shall lift up to thee my little hand, | |
| And thou shalt think thine heart in ease, in health to see me stand. | |
| And if thou come indeed (as Christ thee send to do!) | 15 |
| Those arms which miss thee now shall then embrace [and hold] thee too: | |
| Each vein to every joint the lively blood shall spread | |
| Which now for want of thy glad sight doth show full pale and dead. | |
| But if thou slip thy troth, and do not come at all, | |
| As minutes in the clock do strike so call for death I shall: | 20 |
| To please both thy false heart and rid myself from woe, | |
| That rather had to die in troth than live forsaken so! | |
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