If pleasures be in painfulness, in pleasures doth my body rest, <br />If joyes accord with carefulness, a joyful hart is in my brest: <br />If prison strong be liberty, in liberty long have I been, <br />If joyes accord with misery, who can compare a lyfe to myne: <br />Who can unbind that is sore bound? who can make free yet is sore thrall, <br />Or how can any means be found to comfort such a wretch withall? <br />None can but he yet hath my hart, convert my pains to comfort then, <br />Yet since his servant I became, most like a bondman have I been: <br />Since first in bondage I became, my word and deed was ever such, <br />That never once he could me blame, except for loving him too much. <br />Which I can judge no just offence, nor cause that I deserved disdayne, <br />Except he mean through false pretense, through forgèd love to make a trayne. <br />Nay, nay, alas, my fainèd thoughts my freded and my fainèd ruth, <br />My pleasures past, my present plaints, shew well I mean but to much truth: <br />But since I can not him attain, against my will I let him goe, <br />And lest he glorie at my pain, I wyl attempt to cloke my woe. <br />Youth learne by me but do not prove, for I have provèd to my pain, <br />What greeuous greefes do grow by love, and what it is to love in vaine.<br /><br />Sir Edward Dyer<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-lady-forsaken-complayneth/
