Echo, alas! that doth my sorrow rue,
Returns thereto a hollow sound of plaint.
For all things having life, sometime hath quiet rest;
The bearing ass, the drawing ox, and every other beast;
The peasant and the post, that serves at all assays,
The ship-boy, and the galley-slave, have time to take their ease,
Save I alas! whom care, of force doth so constrain,
To wail the day, and wake the night, continually in pain,
From pensiveness to plaint, from plaint to bitter tears,
From tears to painful plaint again; and thus my life it wears.
The soote season that bud and bloom forth brings
With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale.
The nightingale with feathers new she sings,
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs
The hart has hung his old head on the pale.
The buck in brake his winter coat he slings;
The fishe flete with new repaired scale
The adder all slough away she flings,
The swift swallow persueth the flies smalle,
The busy bee her honey now she mings.
Winter is worn that was the flower's bale.
And thus I see among these pleasent things,
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!
Yet rather die a thousand times than once to false my faith;
And if my feeble corpse, through weight of woful smart,
Do fail or faint, my will it is that still she keep my heart.
And when this carcass here to earth shall be refar'd,
I do bequeath my wearied ghost to serve her afterward.
I assure thee, even by oath,
And thereon take my hand and troth,
That she is one the worthiest,
The truest and the faithfullest,
The gentlest and meekest of mind,
That here on earth a man may find;
And if that love and truth were gone,
In her it might be found alone.
For in her mind no thought there is,
But how she may be true, I wis;
And tenders thee and all thy heal,
And wisheth both thy health and weal;
And loves thee even as far-forth than
As any woman may a man;
And is thy own and so she says;
And cares for thee ten thousand ways;
On thee she speaks, on thee she thinks.
With thee she eats, with thee she drinks;
With thee she talks, with thee she moans,
With thee she sighs, with thee she groans,
With thee she says: «Farewell, mine own!»
When thou, God knows, full far art gone.
And, even to tell thee all aright,
To thee she says full oft: «Good night.»
And names thee oft her own most dear,
Her comfort, weal, and all her cheer;
And tells her pillow all the tale
How thou hast done her woe and bale;
And how she longs and plains for thee,
And says: «Why art thou so from me?
Am I not she that loves thee best?
Do I not wish thine ease and rest?
Seek I not how I may thee please?
Why art thou then so from thy ease?
If I be she for whom thou carest,
For whom in torments so thou farest,
Alas! thou knowest to find me here,
Where I remain thine own most dear,
Thine own most true, thine own most just,
Thine own that loves thee still and must;
Thine own that cares alone for thee,
As thou, I think, dost care for me;
And even the woman, she alone,
That is full bent to be thine own.
[274]: Dans une autre pièce, Complaint on the absence of her lover being upon the sea, il parle en propres termes presque aussi tendrement de sa femme.