| |
| GIVE ear to my suit, Lord! fromward hide not thy face: | |
| Behold! hearken, in grief, lamenting how I pray: | |
| My foes that bray so loud, and eke threpe on 1 so fast, | |
| Buckled to do me scath, 2 so is their malice bent. | |
| Care pierceth my entrails, and travaileth my spirit; | 5 |
| The grisly fear of death environeth my breast: | |
| A trembling cold of dread overwhelmeth my heart. | |
| ‘O!’ think I, ‘had I wings like to the simple dove, | |
| This peril might I fly; and seek some place of rest | |
| In wilder woods, where I might dwell far from these cares.’ | 10 |
| What speedy way of wing my plaints should they lay on, | |
| To ’scape the stormy blast that threaten’d is to me? | |
| Rein those unbridled tongues! break that conjured league! | |
| For I decipher’d have amid our town the strife. | |
| Guile and wrong keep the walls; they ward both day and night: | 15 |
| And mischief join’d with care doth keep the marketstead: | |
| Whilst wickedness with crafts in heaps swarm through the street. | |
| Ne my declared foe wrought me all this reproach. | |
| By harm so looked for, it weigheth half the less. | |
| For though mine enemies hap had been for to prevail, | 20 |
| I could have hid my face from venom of his eye. | |
| It was a friendly foe, by shadow of good will; | |
| Mine old fere, 3 and dear friend, my guide that trapped me; | |
| Where I was wont to fetch the cure of all my care, | |
| And in his bosom hide my secret zeal to God. | 25 |
| With such sudden surprise, quick may him hell devour; | |
| Whilst I invoke the Lord, whose power shall me defend, | |
| My prayer shall not cease, from that the sun descends, | |
| Till he his alture 4 win, and hide them in the sea. | |
| With words of hot effect, 5 that moveth from heart contrite, | 30 |
| Such humble suit, O Lord, doth pierce thy patient ear. | |
| It was the Lord that brake the bloody compacts of those | |
| That pricked on with ire, to slaughter me and mine. | |
| The everlasting God, whose kingdom hath no end, | |
| Whom by no tale to dread he could divert from sin, | 35 |
| The conscience unquiet he strikes with heavy hand, | |
| And proves their force in faith, whom he sware to defend. | |
| Butter falls not so soft as doth his patience long, | |
| And overpasseth fine oil running not half so smooth. | |
| But when his sufferance finds that bridled wrath provokes, | 40 |
| His threatened wrath he whets more sharp than tool can file. | |
| Friar! whose harm and tongue presents the wicked sort, | |
| Of those false wolves, with coats which do their ravin hide; | |
| That swear to me by heaven, the footstool of the Lord, | |
| Though force had hurt my fame, they did not touch my life. | 45 |
| Such patching care I loath, as feeds the wealth with lies; | |
| But in the other Psalm of David find I ease. | |
| Jacta curam tuam super Dominum, et ipse te enutriet. | |
