And then may chaunce thee to repent
The tyme that thou hast lost and spent,

To cause thy lovers sighe and swone;
Then shalt thou know bewtie but lent,
And wishe and want as I have done.

Nowe cease my lewt! this is the laste
Labour that thou and I shall waste,
And ended is that we begunne;
Now is this songe both sunge and past:
My lewt be still, for I have done.

SIR THOMAS WYATT,

Born 1503, died 1541.

THE LOVER

UNHAPPY BIDDETH HAPPY LOVERS REJOICE IN
MAY, WHILE HE WAYLETH THAT MONTH TO HIM MOST
UNLUCKY.

YE that in love find lucke and swete abundance,
And live in lust of joyful jollitie,

Aryse, for shame, do way your sluggardy;
Aryse, I say, do May some observance.

Let me in beds lye dreaming of mischaunce;
Let me remember my mishappes unhappy,
That me betide in May most commonly,
As one whome Love list little to advance.

Stephan* said true, that my nativitie
Mischaunced was with the ruler of May
He guessed, I prove, the veritie.

In May my welth, and eke my wittes, I say,
Have stand so oft in such perplexitie ;
Joy, let me dream of your felicity!

THE LOVER SENDETH HIS COMPLAINTES AND TEARES TO SUE FOR GRACE.

For though hard rockes among
She semes to have been bred ;

And of the tiger long

Been nourished and fed;

Yet shall not nature change

If pitie once win place,

Whom, as unknowne and strange,

She now away doth chase.

* An Italian astrologer.

And as the water soft,

Without forcing or strength,

Where that it falleth oft

Hard stones doth pierce at length,

So in her stony heart

My plaintes at last shall grave;
And, rigour set apart,

Winne graunt of that I crave.

Wherefore, my playntes, present
Still to her my suit,

As ye through her assent

May bring to me some fruit;

And, as she shall me prove,
So bid her me regarde;

And render love for love,
Which is a just reward.

HOW BY A KISS HE FOUND BOTH HIS LIFE
AND DEATH.

NATURE, that gave the bee so feate a grace
To finde honey of so wondrous fashion,
Hath taught the spyder out of the same place
To fetch poyson by strange alteration.
Though this be strange, it is a stranger case,

With one kiss, by a secret operation,

Both these at once in those your lips to finde,

In change whereof I leave my heart behinde.

HOW THE LOVER PERISHETH IN HIS DELIGHT AS
THE FLYE IN THE FIRE.

SOME fowles there be that have no perfite sight
Against the sunne their eyes for to depend;
And some because the light doth them offend
Never appere but in the darke or night;
Others rejoyce to see the fire so bright,
And mene to play in it, as they pretende,
But fynde contrary of it as they entende *.
Alas! of that sort may I be by right;

For to withstand her looke I am not able;
Yet can I not hyde me in no darke place,
So foloweth me remembrance of that face;
That with my teary eyen, swolne and unstable,
My destiny to behold her doth me leade,
And yet I know I runne into the gleade †.

HENRY HOWARD,

EARL OF SURREY,

Born 1516, died 1547.

[In an edition of the poems of Surrey and Wyatt, London, 1717, it is erroneously stated that Surrey, the poet, "commanded at the famous battle of Flodden Field, at which he gave such extraordinary

* But find it contrary to what they expect.
† Gleade, the brightness of the fire; the glow.

proofs of his gallantry, that he was soon after created Earl of Surrey." Mr. Ellis, too, who ought to have known better, in his "Specimens of the early English Poets," 1801, says that he "contributed, by his skill and bravery, to the memorable victory of Flodden Field." What is most surprising, this blunder is to be found in every subsequent edition of Mr. Ellis's work; a proof that his friend, the late Sir Walter Scott, had not read the brief memoir prefixed to Surrey's poems, in which it occurs. The battle of Flodden Field was fought in 1513, three years before the poet was born; and the Earl of Surrey, who there commanded the English army, was the poet's grandfather.]

DESCRIPTION OF SPRING, WHEREIN ECHE THING
RENEWES, SAVE ONLY THE LOVER.

THE SOOte season, that bud and blome forth brings,
With grene hath clad the hill, and eke the vale;
The nightingale with fethers new she sings;
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale;
Somer is come, for every spray now springs;
The hart hath hong his old hed on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coate he flings;
The fishes flete with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she flings;
The swift swalow pursueth the flies smale;
The bisy bee her hony now she mings *;
Winter is worne, that was the flowers bale :
And thus I se among these pleasant things
Eche care decayes; and yet my sorow springs.

* Mingles.