COMPLAINT OF A DYING LOVER

REFUSED UPON HIS LADY'S UNJUST MISTAKING OF HIS WRITING.

IN winter's just return, when Boreas 'gan his reign, And every tree unclothed fast, as nature taught them plain :'

In misty morning dark, as sheep are then in hold,
I hied me fast, it sat me on, my sheep for to unfold.
And as it is a thing that lovers have by fits,

Under a palm I heard one cry as he had lost his wits. Whose voice did ring so shrill in uttering of his plaint, That I amazed was to hear how love could him attaint. 'Ah! wretched man,' quoth he; 'come, death, and rid this woe;

A just reward, a happy end, if it may chance thee so. Thy pleasures past have wrought thy woe without redress;

If thou hadst never felt no joy, thy smart had been the less.'

And rechless of his life, he 'gan both sigh and groan: A rueful thing me thought it was, to hear him make such moan.

1 Dr. Nott extracts from Puttenham's preposterous commentary on these lines (Art of Eng. Poesy, p. 162), an argument in favour of the conjecture that they mark precisely the season of the year when Surrey's passion began.' Whether Surrey fell in love in the month of October is, no doubt, unimportant; but the fact is certainly not established by this couplet. The month of October is indicated plainly enough in the second line; but it escaped the penetration of the learned editor that the season of the fall of the leaf was selected by the poet as having a peculiar appropriateness to the dismal incident he was about to relate, of the death of an unhappy lover. The inconvenience of Dr. Nott's theory of endeavouring to establish applications, in all these pieces, to Surrey's own case, is specially pressed upon us in this instance, where the wretched lover, whose mistress is 'reversed clean,' puts an end to himself in despair. Nor is it only on this point the parallel fails; for it appears that the lady had for many years' returned her lover's passion, which, on Dr. Nott's showing, the fair Geraldine never did.

'Thou cursed pen,' said he, 'woe-worth the bird thee

bare;

The man, the knife, and all that made thee, woe be to their share:

Woe-worth the time and place where I so could indite; And woe be it yet once again, the pen that so can write.

Unhappy hand! it had been happy time for me,

If when to write thou learned first, unjointed hadst thou be.'1

Thus cursed he himself, and every other wight,

Save her alone whom love him bound to serve both day and night.

Which when I heard, and saw how he himself for-did ;* Against the ground with bloody strokes, himself e'en there to rid;

Had been my heart of flint, it must have melted tho'; For in my life I never saw a man so full of woe. With tears for his redress I rashly to him ran,

And in my arms I caught him fast, and thus I spake him than:

'What woful wight art thou, that in such heavy case Torments thyself with such despite, here in this desart place?'

Wherewith as all aghast, fulfilled with ire and dread, He cast on me a staring look, with colour pale and

dead:

'Nay, what art thou,' quoth he, 'that in this heavy plight

Dost find me here, most woful wretch, that life hath in despite?'

1 Dr. Nott follows up the circumstantial reference of this poor lover's history to the case of Surrey, by telling us that the writing here alluded to, which had given the fair Geraldine so much offence, may be supposed to have been the poem which begins- Each beast can chuse his fere; and perhaps the two other pieces-Too dearly had I bought,' and 'Wrapt in my careless cloak,' which, he adds, may be considered as the cause of the final rupture between the fair Geraldine and Surrey!' 2 Destroyed.

'I am,' quoth I, 'but poor, and simple in degree; A shepherd's charge I have in hand, unworthy though I be.'

With that he gave a sigh, as though the sky should fall, And loud, alas! he shrieked oft, and, 'Shepherd,' 'gan he call,

'Come, hie thee fast at once, and print it in thy heart, So thou shalt know, and I shall tell thee, guiltless how I smart.'

His back against the tree sore feebled all with faint, With weary sprite he stretcht him up, and thus he told his plaint:

'Once in my heart,' quoth he, 'it chanced me to love Such one, in whom hath nature wrought, her cunning for to prove.

And sure I cannot say, but many years were spent, With such good will so recompensed, as both we were

content.

Whereto then I me bound, and she likewise also,

The sun should run his course awry, ere we this faith forego.

Who joyed then but I? who had this worldès bliss? Who might compare a life to mine, that never thought on this?

But dwelling in this truth, amid my greatest joy,

Is me befallen a greater loss than Priam had of Troy. She is reversed clean, and beareth me in hand,

That my deserts have given cause to break this faithful band:

And for my just excuse availeth no defence.

Now knowest thou all; I can no more; but, Shepherd, hie thee hence,

And give him leave to die, that may no longer live: Whose record, lo! I claim to have, my death I do forgive.

And eke when I am gone, be bold to speak it plain, Thou hast seen die the truest man that ever love did

pain.'

Wherewith he turned him round, and gasping oft for breath,

Into his arms a tree he raught, and said, 'Welcome my death!

Welcome a thousand fold, now dearer unto me

Than should, without her love to live, an emperor to be.' Thus in this woful state he yielded up the ghost;

And little knoweth his lady, what a lover she hath lost. Whose death when I beheld, no marvel was it, right For pity though my heart did bleed, to see so piteous sight.

My blood from heat to cold oft changed wonders sore; A thousand troubles there I found I never knew before; "Tween dread and dolour so my sprites were brought

in fear,

That long it was ere I could call to mind what I did there.

But as each thing hath end, so had these pains of mine: The furies past, and I my wits restored by length of time.

Then as I could devise, to seek I thought it best

Where I might find some worthy place for such a corse to rest.

And in my mind it came, from thence not far away, Where Cressid's love, king Priam's son, the worthy Troilus lay.

By him I made his tomb, in token he was true,

And as to him belonged well, I covered it with blue.1 Whose soul by angel's power departed not so soon, But to the heavens, lo! it fled, for to receive his doom.

1 Colours, like flowers, were understood to have particular significations, and in that sense may be said to have had a language of their own: as, yellow, jealousy, sometimes indicated by green; and blue, constancy, as in the above instance. Colours were also worn to convey a special meaning, and different classes of persons were distinguished by a predominant colour in their dress. Thus blue, the distinctive emblem of fidelity, was likewise the habit of servants; from which usage, perhaps, the lover may have originally adopted it as the type of his servitude. Red hair and a red beard were associated with

COMPLAINT OF THE ABSENCE OF HER LOVER, BEING UPON THE SEA.

Go

OOD ladies! ye that have your pleasure in exile, Step in your foot, come, take a place, and mourn with me awhile:

And such as by their lords do set but little price, Let them sit still, it skills them not' what chance come on the dice.

But ye whom love hath bound, by order of desire, To love your lords, whose good deserts none other would require;

Come ye yet once again, and set your foot by mine, Whose woful plight, and sorrows great, no tongue may well define.

My love and lord, alas! in whom consists my wealth, Hath fortune sent to pass the seas, in hazard of his health.

Whom I was wont t'embrace with well contented mind, Is now amid the foaming floods at pleasure of the wind, Where God well him preserve, and soon him home me send;

[end, Without which hope my life, alas! were shortly at an Whose absence yet, although my hope doth tell me

plain,

[pain.

With short return he comes anon, yet ceaseth not my

treachery and a vicious disposition; it being the current opinion that Judas Iscariot's hair and beard were of that colour. Yellow hair was regarded with aversion, under the impression that it was the colour of Cain's hair. Hence the phrases Cain-colour and Judas-colour came to be applied to yellow and red beards. To the same source may be referred the orange-tawny doublets and bonnets assigned to Jews and extortioners in the old plays.

1 A common expression in the early writers, usually connected with a negative. 'It skills them not,' simply means it is indifferent to them, it does not signify to them. Nares quotes an example from Byron in which it is used

It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace
His youth.'-Lara.