To wish and want and not obtain, To seek and sue ease of my pain, Since all that ever I do is vain, What may it avail me? Although I strive both day and hour Against the stream with all my power, If fortune list yet for to lour, What may it avail me? If willingly I suffer woe, If from the fire me list not go, If then I burn, to plain me so What may it avail me? And if the harm that I suffer Be run too far out of measure, To seek for help any further What may it avail me? What though each heart that heareth me plain Pitieth and plaineth for my pain? If I no less in grief remain, What may it avail me? Yea, though the want of my relief Displease the causer of my grief, Since I remain still in mischief, What may it avail me? Such cruel chance doth so me threat Continually inward to fret, Then of release for to treat What may it avail me? Fortune is deaf unto my call, My torment moveth her not at all, And though she turn as doth a ball, What may it avail me? For in despair there is no rede; To want of ear speech is no speed; To linger still alive as dead, What may it avail me? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...I LOOK IN MY HEART by SARA TEASDALE MONODY ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R.B. SHERIDAN by GEORGE GORDON BYRON A THOUGHT SUGGESTED BY A VIEW, OF SADDLEBACK IN CUMBERLAND by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE THE PARADOX by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR SING-SONG; A NURSERY RHYME BOOK: 110 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI WOODEN WHEELS by LOWELL C. BALLARD NIGHT BLOSSOMING by JANICE BLANCHARD |