Death & Dying
Shall I look to ease my grief?
From Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age, ed. A. H. Bullen (London: Nimmo, 1891)
Shall I look to ease my grief?
No, my sight is lost with eying:
Shall I speak and beg relief?
No, my voice is hoarse with crying:
What remains but only dying?
Love and I of late did part,
But the boy, my peace envying,
Like a Parthian threw his dart
Backward, and did wound me flying:
What remains but only dying?
She whom then I looked on,
My remembrance beautifying,
Stays with me though I am gone,
Gone and at her mercy lying:
What remains but only dying?
Shall I try her thoughts and write?
No I have no means of trying:
If I should, yet at first sight
She would answer with denying:
What remains but only dying?
Thus my vital breath doth waste,
And, my blood with sorrow drying,
Sighs and tears make life to last
For a while, their place supplying:
What remains but only dying?
Codex Note
From Robert Jones' Ultimum Vale or Third Book of Airs (1608).
Cite this poem
MLA
Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “Shall I look to ease my grief?” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/113/.
Chicago
Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “Shall I look to ease my grief?” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/113/.
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