What pathway find I my desire t’obtain, ✿ How ‘scape from care and cark and pain and bane?
All terrors join to make me old and hoar ✿ Of head and heart, ere youth from me is ta’en:
Nor find I any aid my passion, nor ✿ A friend to lighten load of bane and pain.
How great and many troubles I’ve endured! ✿ Fortune hath turned her back I see unfain.
Ah mercy, mercy on the lover’s heart, ✿ Doomed cup of parting and desertion drain!
A fire is in his heart, his vitals waste, ✿ And severance made his reason vainest vain.
How dread the day I came to her abode ✿ And saw the writ they wrote on doorway lain!
I wept, till gave I earth to drink my grief; ✿ But still to near and far[[49]] I did but feign:
Then strayed I till in waste a lion sprang ✿ On me, and but for flattering words had slain:
I soothed him: so he spared me and lent me aid, ✿ He too might haply of love’s taste complain.