The Lover bemoaneth his unhappiness that he cannot obtain Grace, yet cannot cease loving. Odes. Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1880. The Poetical Works

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

Odes

The Lover bemoaneth his unhappiness that he cannot obtain Grace, yet cannot cease loving


ALL heavy minds
Do seek to ease their charge;
And that that most them binds
To let at large.
Then why should I	5
Hold pain within my heart,
And may my tune apply,
To ease my smart.
My faithful Lute
Alone shall hear me plain,	10
For else all other suit
Is clean in vain.
For where I sue
Redress of all my grief;
Lo! they do most eschew	15
My heart’s relief.
Alas! my dear!
Have I deserved so?
That no help may appear
Of all my woe!	20
Whom speak I to?
Unkind, and deaf of ear!
Alas! lo! I go,
And wot not where.
Where is my thought?	25
Where wanders my desire?
Where may the thing be sought
That I require?
Light in the wind
Doth flee all my delight;	30
Where truth and faithful mind
Are put to flight.
Who shall me give
Feather’d wings for to flee?
The thing that doth me grieve	35
That I may see!
Who would go seek
The cause whereby to pain?
Who could his foe beseek
For ease of pain!	40
My chance doth so
My woful case procure,
To offer to my foe
My heart to cure.
What hope I then	45
To have any redress!
Of whom, or where, or when?
Who can express!
No! since despair
Hath set me in this case,	50
In vain is’t in the air
To say, Alas!
I seek nothing
But thus for to discharge
My heart of sore sighing,	55
To plain at large.
And with my lute
Sometime to ease my pain;
For else all other suit
Is clean in vain.	60