Classic Poem

Through this my strong and new misaventure,
All now is lost to me
Which most was sweet in Love's supremacy.

So much of life is dead in its control,
That she, my pleasant lady of all grace,
Is gone out of the devastated soul:
I see her not, nor do I know her place;
Nor even enough of virtue with me stays
To understand, ah me!
The flower of her exceeding purity.

Because there comes — to kill that gentle thought
With saying that I shall not see her more —
This constant pain wherewith I am distraught,
Which is a burning torment very sore,
Wherein I know not whom I should implore.
Thrice thanked the Master be
Who turns the grinding wheel of misery!

Full of great anguish in a place of fear
The spirit of my heart lies sorrowing,
Through Fortune's bitter craft. She lured it here
And gave it o'er to Death, and barbed the sting;
She wrought that hope which was a treacherous thing;
In Time, which dies from me,
She made me lose mine hour of ecstasy.

For you, perturbed and fearful words of mine,
Whither yourselves may please, even thither go;
But always burthened with shame's troublous sign,
And on my lady's name still calling low.
For me, I must abide in such deep woe
That all who look shall see
Death's shadow on my face assuredly.