Classic Poem

CXCVI

I know not where my heavy sighs to hide.
My sorrowful heart is so vexed with pain
I wander forth as one without a guide
That seeketh to find a thing parted in twain
And so forth run that scant can turn again.
Thus time I pass and waste full piteously
For death it is out of thy sight to be.

I scantly know from whom comes all my grief,
But that I waste as one doth in sickness
And cannot tell which way comes my mischief.
For all I taste to me is bitterness
And of my health I have no sickerness
Nor shall not have till that I do thee see.
It is my death out of thy sight to be.

I live in earth as one that would be dead
And cannot die. Alas, the more my pain!
Famished I am and yet always am fed.
Thus contrary all thing doth me constrain
To laugh, to mourn, to walk, to joy, to plain,
And shall do still — there is no remedy —
Until the time that in thy sight I be.

There nis sickness but health it doth desire,
Nor poverty but riches like to have,
Nor ship in storm but that steering it doth require
Harbour to find so that they may her save.
And I, alas, naught in this world do crave
Save that thou list on him to have mercy
Whose death it is out of thy sight to be.