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Portal:Poetry/poem archive/Week 3 2007

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The Dolefull Lay of Clorinda (c. 1500; first five stanzas)

Mary Sidney Herbert

AY me, to whom shall I my case complaine?
That may compassion my impatient griefe?
Or where shall I unfold my inward paine,
That my enriuen heart may find reliefe?

Shall I vnto the heauenly powres it show?
Or unto earthly men that dwell below?


To heauens? ah they alas the authors were,
And workers of my vnremedied wo:
For they foresee what to vs happens here,
And they foresaw, yet suffred this be so.

From them comes good, from them comes also il
That which they made, who can them warne to spill.


To men? ah, they alas like wretched bee,
And subiect to the heauens ordinance:
Bound to abide what euer they decree,
Their best redresse, is their best sufferance.

How then can they like wretched comfort mee,
The which no lesse, need comforted to bee?


Then to my selfe will I my sorrow mourne,
Sith none aliue like sorrowfull remaines:
And to my selfe my plaints shall back retourne,
To pay their vsury with doubled paines.

The woods, the hills, the riuers shall resound
The mournfull accent of my sorrowes ground.


Woods, hills and riuers, now are desolate,
Sith he is gone the which them all did grace:
And all the fields do waile their widow state,
Sith death their fairest flowre did late deface.

The fairest flowre in field that euer grew,
Was Astrophel: that was, we all may rew.