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Home  »  The Poetical Works by Sir Thomas Wyatt  »  The disdainful Lady refusing to hear her Lover’s Suit, he resolveth to forsake her

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–42). The Poetical Works. 1880.

Odes

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.

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.