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Philip Rosseter (»1568(1575?) - 1623)
No grave for woe, yet earth my wat’ry tears devours,
Sighs want air, and burnt desires kind pity’s show’rs,
Stars hold their fatal course, my joys preventing,
The earth, the sea, the air, the fire, the heav’ns vow my tormenting.
Yet still I live and waste my weary days in groans,
And with woeful tunes adorn despairing moans,
Night still prepares a more displeasing morrow,
My day is night, my life is death, and all but sense of sorrow.
If I urge my kind desires,
She unkind doth them reject,
Women’s hearts are painted fires
To deceive them that affect,
I alone love’s fires include,
She alone doth them delude.
She hath often vow’d her love,
But alas no fruit I find,
That her fires are false I prove,
Yet in her no fault I find,
I was thus unhappy born,
And ordain’d to be her scorn.
Yet if human care, or pain
May the heav’nly order change,
She will hate her own disdain,
And repent she was so strange,
For a truer heart than I,
Never liv’d or lov’d to die.
Long have mine eyes gaz’d with delight
Conveying hopes unto my soul,
In nothing happy but in sight,
Of her that doth my sight control,
But now mine eyes must lose their light.
My object now must be the air,
To write in water words of fire,
And teach sad thoughts how to despair,
Desert must quarrel with desire,
All were appeas’d were she not fair.
For all my comfort this I prove,
That Venus on the sea was borne,
If seas be calm then doth she love,
If storms arise I am forlorn,
My doubtful hopes like wind do move.
Though far from joy, my sorrows are as far,
And I both between,
Not too low, nor yet too high
Above my reach would I be seen,
Happy is he that so is placed,
Not to be envied, nor to be disdain’d or disgraced.
The higher trees, the more storms they endure,
Shrubs be trodden down,
But the mean, the golden mean,
Doth only all our fortunes crown,
Like to a stream that sweetly slideth,
Through the flowery banks, and still in the midst his course guideth.
Whether men do laugh or weep,
Whether they do wake or sleep,
Whether they die young or old,
Whether they feel heat or cold,
There is underneath the sun,
Nothing in true earnest done.
All our pride is but a jest,
None are worst, and none are best,
Grief, and joy, and hope, and fear,
Play their pageants everywhere,
Vain opinion all doth sway,
And the world is but a play.
Pow’rs above in clouds do sit,
Mocking our poor apish wit,
That so lamely with such state,
Their high glory imitate,
No ill can be felt but pain,
And that happy men disdain.