Alas the greeffe, and dedly wofull smart:

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Witness description: A collection of 123 poems, of which one is copied twice, entered before 1558. Nineteen were added in Elizabethan hands. Twenty-five poems and corrections in three others are in Sir Thomas Wyatt’s hand. One poem and some revisions of Wyatt’s poems are in Nicholas Grimald’s hand from c. 1549. Seventy-three of the entries from before 1558 are signed with “TV,” “VT,” or “Tho,” possibly in Wyatt’s hand. A sixteenth century hand has signed fifteen other poems with “Wyatt.” The MS, without Grimald’s additions, was copied for and partly by Wyatt before 1542 as a collection of Wyatt’s poems. See O cruell causer of vndeserrved chaynge in the Devonshire Manuscript.

1310584BL Egerton MS 2,711 — Alas the greeffe, and dedly wofull smart:

f.5v-6v

Alas the greeffe, and dedly wofull smart:O cruell causer of vndeserued chaunge:by great desire vnconstantly to raunge:is this your waye, for proofe of stedfastenes5 (perdye you knowe : the thing was not so straungeby former prouff) to muche my faithfulneswhat nedeth, then, suche coloured dowblenes.I have wailed, thus, weping in nyghtly payn:in sobbis, & sighes : Alas : & all in vayn:10 in inward plaint : & hertes wofull torment.and yet, Alas, lo, crueltie, & disdaynhave, set at noght a faithfull true intent:and price hath priuilege thouth to prevent.But, though I sterve : & to my deth still morne:15 and pece mele in peces though I be torn:and though I dye, yelding my weried gooste:shall never thing again make me retornI qwite thenterprise of that, that I have losttoo whome so ever lust for too proffer moost.