A Complaint by Night of the Lover not beloved

ALAS! so all things now do hold their peace!

Heaven and earth disturbed in no thing;

The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease,

The nightès car the stars about doth bring.

Calm is the sea; the waves work less and less:

So am not I, whom love, alas! doth wring,

Bringing before my face the great increase

Of my desires, whereat I weep and sing,

In joy and woe, as in a doubtful ease.

For my sweet thoughts sometime do pleasure bring;

But by and by, the cause of my disease

Gives me a pang, that inwardly doth sting,

When that I think what grief it is again,

To live and lack the thing should rid my pain.