The Poems of Henry Howard :: :: University of Virginia Library

Though I regarded not
The promise made to me,
Or passed not to spot
My faith and honeste,
Yet were my fancie strange
And wilful will to wite,
If I sought now to change
A falkon for a kite.

All men might well dispraise
My wit and enterprise,
If I estemed a pese
Aboue a perle in price,
Or iudged the oule in sight
The sparehauke to excell,
Which flieth but in the night,
As all men know right well.

Or, if I sought to saile
Into the brittle port
Where anker hold doth faile,
To such as doe resort,
And leaue the hauen sure
Where blowes no blustring winde,
Nor fickelnesse in vre,
So far forth as I finde.

No, thinke me not so light
Nor of so chorlish kinde,
Though it lay in my might
My bondage to vnbinde,
That I would leue the hinde
To hunt the ganders fo.
No, no! I haue no minde
To make exchanges so,

Nor yet to change at all.
For thinke it may not be
That I should seke to fall
From my felicitie,
Desyrous for to win,
And loth for to forgo,
Or new change to begin.
How may all this be so?

The fire it can not freze,
For it is not his kinde,
Nor true loue cannot lese
The constance of the minde;
Yet, as sone shall the fire
Want heat to blaze and burn,
As I in such desire
Haue once a thought to turne.