University of Virginia Library

To this my song

The louer that once disdained loue is now become subiect beyng caught in his snare.

To this my song geue eare, who list:
And mine intent iudge, as you wyll:
The tyme is cume, that I haue mist,
The thyng, wheron I hoped styll,
And from the top of all my trust,
Myshap hath throwen me in the dust.
The time hath been, and that of late:
My hart and I might leape at large.
And was not shut within the gate
Of loues desyre: nor toke no charge
Of any thyng, that dyd pertain

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Q4v

As touching loue in any payn.
My thought was free, my hart was light:
I marked not, who lost, who saught.
I playde by day, I slept by night.
I forced not, who wept, who laught.
My thought from all such thinges was free:
And I my self at libertee.
I toke no hede to tanntes,

[_]

tauntes

nor toyes:
As leefe to see them frowne as smile:
Where fortune laught I scorned their ioyes:
I found their fraudes and euery wile.
And to my self oft times I smiled:
To see, how loue had them begiled.
Thus in the net of my conceit
I masked styll among the sort
Of such as fed vpon the bayt,
That Cupide laide for his disport.
Aud

[_]

And

euer as I saw them caught:
I them beheld, and therat laught.
Till at the length when Cupide spied
My scornefull will and spitefull vse
And how I past not who was tied.
So that my self might still liue lose:
He set himself to lye in wait:
And in my way he threw a bait.
Such one, as nature neuer made,
I dare well say saue she alone.
Such one she was as would inuade
A hart, more hard then marble stone.
Such one she is, I know, it right,
Her nature made to shew her might.
Then as a man euen in a maze,
When vse of reason is away:
So I began to stare, and gaze.
And sodeinly, without delay,
Or euer I had the wit to loke:
I swalowed vp both bayt, and hoke.
Which daily greues me more and more
By sondry sortes of carefull wo:
And none aliue may salue the sore,
But onely she, that hurt me so.
In whom my life doth now consist,

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R1r

To saue or slay me as she list.
But seing now that I am caught,
And bounde so fast, I cannot flee:
Be ye by mine ensample taught,
That in your fansies fele you free.
Despise not them, that louers are:
Lest you be caught within his snare.