T. Wyatt of Love

LIKE as the wind with raging blast

Doth cause each tree to bow and bend;

Even so do I spend my time in waste,

My life consuming unto an end.

For as the flame by force doth quench the fire,

And running streams consume the rain;

Even so do I myself desire

To augment my grief and deadly pain.

Whereas I find that what is what,

And cold is cold by course of kind,

So shall I knit an endless knot;

Such fruit in love, alas! I find.

When I foresaw those crystal streams,

Whose beauty doth cause my mortal wound,

I little thought within those beams

So sweet a venom for to have found.

I feel and see my own decay;

As one that beareth flame in his breast,

Forgetful thought to put away

The thing that breedeth my unrest.

Like as the fly doth seek the flame,

And afterward playeth in the fire,

Who findeth her woe, and seeketh her game,

Whose grief doth grow of her own desire.

Like as the spider doth draw her line,

As labour lost so is my suit;

The gain is hers, the loss is mine:

Of evil-sown seed such is the fruit.