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

O happy dames, that may embrace
The frute of your delight,
Help to bewaile the wofull case
And eke the heauy plight
Of me, that wonted to reioyce
The fortune of my pleasant choyce.
Good ladies, help to fill my moorning voyce.

In ship, freight with rememberance
Of thoughts and pleasures past,
He sailes that hath in gouernance
My life, while it wil last;
With scalding sighes, for lack of gale,
Furdering his hope, that is his sail,
Toward me, the swete port of his auail.

Alas! how oft in dreames I se
Those eyes, that were my food,
Which somtime so delited me
That yet they do me good;
Wherwith I wake with his returne,
Whose absent flame did make me burne.
But when I finde the lacke, Lord how I mourne!

When other louers, in armes acrosse,
Reioyce their chiefe delight,
Drowned in tears, to mourne my losse,
I stand the bitter night
In my window, where I may see
Before the windes how the cloudes flee.
Lo, what a mariner loue hath made me!

And in grene waues, when the salt flood
Doth rise by rage of winde,
A thousand fansies in that mood
Assayle my restlesse mind.
Alas! now drencheth my swete fo,
That with the spoyle of my hart did go,
And left me; but, alas, why did he so!

And when the seas waxe calme againe,
To chase fro me annoye,
My doubtfull hope doth cause me plaine;
So dreade cuts of my ioye.
Thus is my wealth mingled with wo,
And of ech thought a dout doth growe:
Now he comes; will he come? alas, no, no!