Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
O HAPPY dames! that may embrace | |
The fruit of your delight, | |
Help to bewail the woful case | |
And eke the heavy plight | |
Of me, that wonted to rejoice | 5 |
The fortune of my pleasant choice: | |
Good ladies, help to fill my mourning voice. | |
|
In ship, freight with rememberance | |
Of thoughts and pleasures past, | |
He sails that hath in governance | 10 |
My life while it will last: | |
With scalding sighs, for lack of gale, | |
Furthering his hope, that is his sail, | |
Toward me, the swete port of his avail. | |
|
Alas! how oft in dreams I see | 15 |
Those eyes that were my food; | |
Which sometime so delighted me, | |
That yet they do me good: | |
Wherewith I wake with his return | |
Whose absent flame did make me burn: | 20 |
But when I find the lack, Lord! how I mourn! | |
|
When other lovers in arms across | |
Rejoice their chief delight, | |
Drownèd in tears, to mourn my loss | |
I stand the bitter night | 25 |
In my window where I may see | |
Before the winds how the clouds flee: | |
Lo! what a mariner love hath made me! | |
|
And in green waves when the salt flood | |
Doth rise by rage of wind, | 30 |
A thousand fancies in that mood | |
Assail my restless mind. | |
Alas! now drencheth my sweet foe, | |
That with the spoil of my heart did go, | |
And left me; but alas! why did he so? | 35 |
|
And when the seas wax calm again | |
To chase fro me annoy, | |
My doubtful hope doth cause me plain; | |
So dread cuts off my joy. | |
Thus is my wealth mingled with woe | 40 |
And of each thought a doubt doth grow; | |
—Now he comes! Will he come? Alas! no, no. | |