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Home  »  The Poetical Works by Sir Thomas Wyatt  »  The Lover complaineth his Estate

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–42). The Poetical Works. 1880.

Odes

The Lover complaineth his Estate

I SEE, that chance hath chosen me

Thus secretly to live in pain,

And to another given the fee,

Of all my loss to have the gain:

By chance assign’d thus do I serve.

And other have that I deserve.

Unto myself sometime alone

I do lament my woful case;

But what availeth me to moan

Since truth and pity hath no place

In them, to whom I sue and serve?

And other have that I deserve.

To seek by mean to change this mind,

Alas, I prove, it will not be;

For in my heart I cannot find

Once to refrain, but still agree,

As bound by force, alway to serve,

And other have that I deserve.

Such is the fortune that I have,

To love them most that love me lest;

And to my pain to seek, and crave

The thing that other have possest:

So thus in vain alway I serve,

And other have that I deserve.

And till I may appease the heat,

If that my hap will hap so well,

To wail my woe my heart shall frete,

Whose pensive pain my tongue can tell;

Yet thus unhappy must I serve.

And other have that I deserve.