Selected Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt

Sir Thomas Wyatt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136087707
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

First published in 2003. Sir Thomas Wyatt stands at a crossroads in English poetry. He inherits the best of a medieval lyric tradition and, at the same time, points forward to the achievement of the Elizabethans. For the reader of today he is a modern poet before his time. This is a collection of his sonnets, epigrams, songs and pslams.

Songs and Lyrics

18

My lute, awake! Perform the last

Labour that thou and I shall waste,

And end that I have now begun,

For when this song is sung and past,

My lute be still, for I have done.

As to be heard where ear is none,

As lead to grave in marble stone,

My song may pierce her heart as soon.

Should we then sigh or sing or moan?

No, no, my lute, for I have done.

The rocks do not so cruelly

Repulse the waves continually

As she my suit and affection,

So that I am past remedy,

Whereby my lute and I have done.

Proud of the spoil that thou hast got

Of simple hearts thorough love's shot,

By whom, unkind, thou hast them won,

Think not he has his bow forgot,

Although my lute and I have done.

Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain

That mak'st but game on earnest pain.

Think not alone under the sun

Unquit to cause thy lovers plain,

Although my lute and I have done.

May chance thee lie withered and old

The winter nights that are so cold,

Plaining in vain unto the moon.

Thy wishes then dare not be told.

Care then who list, for I have done.

And then may chance thee to repent

The time that thou hast lost and spent

To cause thy lovers sigh and swoon.

Then shalt thou know beauty but lent,

And wish and want as I have done.

Now cease, my lute This is the last

Labour that thou an

And ended is that we begun.

Now is this song both sung and past.

My lute, be still, for I have done.

19

Blame not my lute, for he must sound

Of this or that as liketh me;

For lack of wit the lute is bound

To give such tunes as pleaseth me.

Though my songs be somewhat strange

And speak such words as touch thy change,

Blame not my lute.

My lute, alas, doth not offend,

Though that perforce he must agree

To sound such tunes as I intend,

To sing to them that heareth me.

Then though my songs be somewhat plain

And toucheth some that use to feign,

Blame not my lute.

My lute and strings may not deny,

But as I strike they must obey.

Break not them then so wrongfully,

But wreak thyself some wiser way;

And though the songs which I indite

Do quit thy change with rightful spite,

Blame not my lute.

Spite asketh spite, and changing change,

And falsèd faith must needs be known;

The faults so great, the case so strange,

Of right it must abroad be blown.

Then since that by thine own desert

My songs do tell how true thou art,

Blame not my lute.

Blame but thyself that hast misdone,

And well deservèd to have blame;

Change thou thy way so evil begun,

And then my lute shall sound that same.

But if till then my fingers play

By thy desert their wonted way,

Blame not my lute.

Farewell, unknown, for though thou break

My strings in spite with great disdain,

Yet have I found out for thy sake

Str...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Sonnets
• Epigrams
• Songs and Lyrics
• Satires and Psalms
• Notes