< The Devonshire Manuscript

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The Devonshire Manuscript
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←It was my choyse It Was my chaunceWyth sorowful syghes and wondes smart→
The Devonshire Manuscript facsimile 26r
The Devonshire Manuscript facsimile 25v

f. [25v] 
f. [26r] 

1    Now may I morne as one off late
2    Dryuen by force from y my delyte
3    and can not se my louely mate
4    th to whom for ever my hart ys plyte

5    Alas that euer pryson stronge
6    sholde such too louers seperate
7    yet thowgh ower bodys suffereth wronge
8    ower harts shalbe off one estate

9    I wyll not swerue I yow Insure
10    for gold nor yet for worldly fere
11    but lyke as yerne I wyll Indure
12    suche faythful loue to yow I bere

13    Thus fare ye well to me most dere
14    off all the world both most and lest
15    I pray yow be off ryght good chere
16    and thynke on me that louys yow best

17    and I wyll promyse yow agayne
18    to thynke off yow I wyll not lett1
19    for nothyng cowld relesse my payne
20    but to thynke on yow my louer swete

finis

Notes & Glosses

     1. This use of "let" is similar to that in Henry VIII's "Pastyme with good company."

Commentary

Attributed to Lord Thomas Howard,[1] the poem was entered by TH2. Typical of courtly love literature, the speaker emphasizes the pain that occurs when lovers are separated from each other.

Works Cited

  1. ↑ William A. Ringler, Jr., Michael Rudick, and Susan J. Rigler, Bibliography and Index of English Verse in Manuscript, 1501-1558 (London: Manswell, 1992), 167.
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