More Wyatt…

Another sweet sonnet by my favourite, and much admired Sir Thomas Wyatt; he was born in 1503 and had an adventurous, interesting and sometimes very dangerous life, serving the remarkable but fearsome Henry VIII. Thomas died too soon in 1542. This poem has resonances in so many modern songs, but which of them would ever have they lyric ‘For he who believes such, ploughs in water and sows in sand

My heart I gave thee not to do it pain, 
But to preserve it was to thee taken; 
I served thee not to be forsaken, 
But that I should be rewarded again. 
I was content thy servant to remain, 
But not to be payed under this fashion. 
Now since in thee is none other reason, 
Displease thee not if that I do refrain,
Unsatiate of my woe and thy desire. 
Assured be craft to excuse thy fault. 
But since it please thee to feign a default 
Farewell I say, parting from the fire. 
For he that believeth, bearing in hand, 
Plougheth in water and soweth in the sand.