What would ye more of me, your slave, require Than for to ask and have that ye desire? Yet I remain without recure. I you insure there is no faithful heart That without cause causeless thus suffer'th smart. You have the joy and I have all the pain. Yours the pleasure and I in woe remain. Alas, and why do ye me blame? It is no game thus to destroy my heart Nor without cause thus to cause it smart. I have assayed in all that ever I might You for to please, for that was my delight. All could not serve. Ye list not see, But cruelly hath undone my poor heart And without cause doth cause it suffer smart. Ye make a play at all my woe and grief And yet, alas, among all my mischief, Nothing at all that ye regard, Nor will reward a faithful-meaning heart But thus causeless to cause it suffer smart. If that ye list my painful death to see Ye need no more but use this cruelty; For shorter death cannot be found Than, without ground, by force of cruel heart Causeless by cause to cause me suffer smart. Adieu! Farewell! I feel my joy's distress. Fled is my wealth; my torments doth increase. Thus have I won for all my hire To burn in fire swelting my woeful heart That without cause causeless thus suffer'th smart. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WASTE LAND (1-5, COMPLETE) by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD MORNING by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES AN ECHO FROM WILLOW-WOOD by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI SONNET: 94 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE SOBBING OF THE BELLS (MIDNIGHT, SEPT. 19-20, 1881) by WALT WHITMAN TO ADOLPHE GAIFFE by THEODORE FAULLAIN DE BANVILLE |