O happy dames, that may embrace
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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O happy dames, that may embraceThe fruit of your delight,Help to bewail the woeful caseAnd eke the heavy plightOf me, that wonted to rejoiceThe fortune of my pleasant choice:Good ladies, help to fill my mourning voice.
In ship, freight with rememberanceOf thoughts and pleasures past,He sails, that hath in governanceMy life, while it will last;With scalding sighs, for lack of gale,Futhering his hope, that is his sail,Toward me, the sweet port of his avail.
Alas, how oft in dreams I seeThose eyes, that were my food,Which sometime so delighted me,That yet they do me good;Wherewith I wake with his return,Whose absent flame did make me burn:But when I find the lack, Lord how I mourn!
When other lovers in arms acrossRejoice their chief delight,Drowned in tears to mourn my lossI stand the bitter nightIn my window, where I may seeBefore the winds how the clouds flee.Lo, what a mariner love hath made me!
And in green waves when the salt floodDoth rise by rage of wind,A thousand fancies in that moodAssail my restless mind.Alas, now drencheth my sweet foe,That with the spoil of my heart did goAnd left me; but, alas, why did he so?
And when the seas wax calm again,To chese from me annoy,My doubtful hope doth cause my plain,So dread cuts off my joy.Thus is my wealth mingled with woe,And of each thought a doubt doth grow:Now he comes! Will he come? Alas, no, no!