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Home  »  The Poetical Works by Sir Thomas Wyatt  »  That the Power of Love excuseth the Folly of loving

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–42). The Poetical Works. 1880.

Odes

That the Power of Love excuseth the Folly of loving

SINCE love is such as that ye wot

Cannot always be wisely used;

I say therefore then blame me not,

Though I therein have been abused.

For as with cause I am accused,

Guilty I grant such was my lot;

And though it cannot be excused,

Yet let such folly be forgot.

For in my years of reckless youth

Methought the power of love so great;

That to his laws I bound my truth,

And to my will there was no let.

Me list no more so far to fet;

Such fruit! lo! as of love ensu’th;

The gain was small that was to get,

And of the loss the less the ruth.

And few there is but first or last,

A time in love once shall they have;

And glad I am my time is past,

Henceforth my freedom to withsave.

Now in my heart there shall I grave

The granted grace that now I taste;

Thanked be fortune that me gave

So fair a gift, so sure and fast.

Now such as have me seen ere this,

When youth in me set forth his kind;

And folly framed my thought amiss,

The fault whereof now well I find;

Lo! since that so it is assign’d,

That unto each a time there is,

Then blame the lot that led my mind,

Some time to live in love’s bliss.

But from henceforth I do protest,

By proof of that that I have past,

Shall never cease within my breast

The power of Love so late outcast:

The knot thereof is knit full fast,

And I thereto so sure profess’d

For evermore with me to last

The power wherein I am possess’d.