O HAPPY dames! that may embrace <br />The fruit of your delight, <br />Help to bewail the woful case <br />And eke the heavy plight <br />Of me, that wonted to rejoice <br />The fortune of my pleasant choice: <br />Good ladies, help to fill my mourning voice. <br /> <br />In ship, freight with rememberance <br />Of thoughts and pleasures past, <br />He sails that hath in governance <br />My life while it will last: <br />With scalding sighs, for lack of gale, <br />Furthering his hope, that is his sail, <br />Toward me, the sweet port of his avail. <br /> <br />Alas! how oft in dreams I see <br />Those eyes that were my food; <br />Which sometime so delighted me, <br />That yet they do me good: <br />Wherewith I wake with his return <br />Whose absent flame did make me burn: <br />But when I find the lack, Lord! how I mourn! <br /> <br />When other lovers in arms across <br />Rejoice their chief delight, <br />Drownàed in tears, to mourn my loss <br />I stand the bitter night <br />In my window where I may see <br />Before the winds how the clouds flee: <br />Lo! what a mariner love hath made me! <br /> <br />And in green waves when the salt flood <br />Doth rise by rage of wind, <br />A thousand fancies in that mood <br />Assail my restless mind. <br />Alas! now drencheth my sweet foe, <br />That with the spoil of my heart did go, <br />And left me; but alas! why did he so? <br /> <br />And when the seas wax calm again <br />To chase fro me annoy, <br />My doubtful hope doth cause me plain; <br />So dread cuts off my joy. <br />Thus is my wealth mingled with woe <br />And of each thought a doubt doth grow; <br />—Now he comes! Will he come? Alas! no, no.<br /><br />Henry Howard<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/complaint-of-the-absence-of-her-lover-being-upon-the-sea/
