XVI.
My ewes breed not,
My rams speed not,
All is amiss: |
Faith’s defying,
Heart’s renying,
Causer of this. |
All my lady’s love is lost, God wot:
Where her faith was firmly fix’d in love,
There a nay is placed without remove.
One silly cross
Wrought all my loss;
O frowning Fortune, cursed, fickle dame! |
Inconstancy
More in women than in men remain. |
All fears scorn I,
Love hath forlorn me,
Living in thrall: |
All help needing,
O cruel speeding,
Fraughted with gall. |
My wether’s bell rings doleful knell;
My curtail dog, that wont to have play’d
Plays not at all, but seems afraid;
My sighs so deep
Procure to weep,
In howling wise, to see my doleful plight. |
Through heartless ground,
Like a thousand vanquish’d men in bloody fight! |
Sweet birds sing not,
Green plants bring not
Forth their dye; |
Flocks all sleeping,
Nymphs back peeping
Fearfully: |
All our merry meetings on the plains,
All our evening sport from us is fled,
All our love is lost, for Love is dead
Farewell, sweet lass,
Thy like ne’er was
For a sweet content, the cause of all my moan: |
Must live alone;
Other help for him I see that there is none. |