It is nearly five hundred years since ‘Ever mine hap is slack and slow in coming’ was written, and yet the imagery is as startling and vivid as any contemporary poet might use today. Black snow that is scalding hot not freezing cold, empty seas, fish in the mountains, and the Thames reversed back to His source… we may struggle with some words, but even without properly understanding all of them we get the tenor of his meaning; ‘hap’ we might correctly means fortune or fate, luck or chance. There are so many clever little phrases and echoes, mine hap/mine hope, slack/slow, leave it/wait it, be black/return back, love/lady/leave, trust/travail…
This sonnet by Thomas Wyatt paints pictures with words:
Ever mine hap is slack and slow in coming,
Desire increasing, mine hope uncertain,
That leave it or wait it doth me like pain
And tiger-like swift it is in parting.
Alas, the snow shall be black and scalding,
The sea waterless, fish in the mountain,
The Thames shall return back into his fountain,
And where he rose the sun shall take lodging
Ere that I in this find peace or quietness
In that Love or my lady right wisely
Leave to conspire again me wrongfully.
And if that I have after such bitterness
Anything sweet, my mouth is out of taste,
That all my trust and travail is but waste.
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)
Lois Elsden 