University of Virginia Library

Complaint of the absence of her louer being vpon the sea.

Good Ladies, ye that haue your pleasures in exile,
Step in your foote, come take a place, & moorne with me a while
And such as by their lordes do set but little price,
Let them sit still: it skilles them not what chance come on ye dice.
But ye whom loue hath bound by ordre of desire
To loue your lords, whose good desertes none other wold require:
Come ye yet ones again, and set your foote by mine,
Whose wofull plight and sorrowes great no tong may wel define.
My loue and lord, alas, in whom consistes my wealth,
Hath fortune sent to passe the seas in hazarde of his health.
Whome I was wont tembrace with well contented minde
Is now amidde the foming floods at pleasure of the winde.
Where God well him preserue, and sone him home me send.
Without which hope, my life (alas) wer shortly at an end.
Whose absence yet, although my hope doth tell me plaine,
With short returne he comes anon, yet ceasith not my payne.
The fearfull dreames I haue, oft times do greue me so:
That when I wake, I lye in doute, where they be true, or no.
Sometime the roring seas (me semes) do grow so hye:
That my dere Lord (ay me alas) me thinkes I se him die.
Another time the same doth tell me: he is cumne:
And playeng, where I shall him find with his faire little sonne.
So forth I go apace to se that leefsom sight.
And with a kisse, me think, I say: welcome my lord, my knight;
Welcome my swete, alas, the stay of my welfare.
Thy presence bringeth forth a truce atwixt me, & my care.
Then liuely doth he loke, and salueth me againe,
And saith: my dere, how is it now, that you haue all thys paine?
Wherwith the heauy cares: that heapt are in my brest,
Breake forth, and me dischargen clene of all my huge vnrest.
But when I me awake, and finde it but a dreme,
The anguishe of my former wo beginneth more extreme:
And me tormenteth so, that vnneath may I finde
Sum hidden place, wherein to slake the gnawing of my mind.
Thus euery way you se, with absence how I burn:
And for my wound no cure I find, but hope of good return.
Saue whan I think, by sowre how swete is felt the more:
It doth abate som of my paines, that I abode before.
And then vnto my self I say: when we shal meete.
But litle while shall seme this paine, the ioy shal be so sweete.
Ye windes, I you coniure in chiefest of your rage,
That ye my lord me safely sende, my sorowes to asswage:
And that I may not long abide in this excesse.
Do your good will, to cure a wight, that liueth in distresse.