| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | The Ways on Earth | | By Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1565–1601) |
| | | THE WAYS on earth have paths and turnings known; | |
| The ways on sea are gone by needle’s light; | |
| The birds of the air the nearest way have flown, | |
| And under earth the moles do cast aright; | |
| A way more hard than these I needs must take, | 5 |
| Where none can teach, nor no man can direct; | |
| Where no man’s good for me example makes, | |
| But all men’s faults do teach her to suspect. | |
| Her thoughts and mine such disproportion have; | |
| All strength of Love is infinite in me; | 10 |
| She useth the ’vantage time and fortune gave | |
| Of worth and power to get the liberty. | |
| Earth, sea, heaven, hell, are subject unto laws, | |
| But I, poor I, must suffer and know no cause. | | | | |
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