Drown me not, you
cruel tears,
Which in sorrow
witness bears
OF my wailing
And love's
failing.
Floods but cover and
retire,
Washing
faces of desire,
Whose fresh
growing
Springs by flowing
Meadows ever yet did love
Pleasant streams which by them move,
But your
falling
Claims the calling
Of a torrent curstly fierce
Past wit's power to
rehearse;
Only crying,
Or my dying
May instead of
verse or
prose
My disastrous end disclose.
--Lady Mary Wroth from Urania