re

This goodly gardyn / I dyde well beholde
Where I sawe a place / ryght gaye and gloryous
With golden turrettes / paynted many afolde
Lyke a place of pleasure moste solacyous
The wyndowes glased / with crystall precyous
The golden fanes / with wynde and melody
By dulcet sounde / and meruaylous armony

The knottes flagraunt / with aromatyke odoure
With goodly sprynges / of meruaylous mountaynes
I dyde than tast / the redolent lycoure
Moost clere and swete / of the goodly vaynes
Whiche dyde me ease / somwhat of my paynes
Tyll to me came / a lady of goodly age
Apareyled sadly / and demure of vysage

To me she sayd / me thynke ye are not well
ye haue caught colde / and do lyue in care
Tell me your mynde / now shortly euerydele
To layne the trouthe / I charge you to beware
I shall for you / a remedy prepare
Dyspeyre you not / for no thynge that is past
Tell me your mynde / and be nought agast

Alas madame / vnto her than I sayd
It is no wonder / of myne inwarde payne
yf that my herte be meruayllously dysmayde
My trouthe and loue / therof is cause certayne
Dyuers yeres ago / I dyde in mynde retayne
A lady yonge / a lady fayre of syght
Good // wyse / and goodly / an holsome sterre of lyght

I durst not speke vnto her of my loue
Yet vnder coloure I dyuers bokes dyde make
Full pryuely / to come to my aboue
Thus many nyghtes / I watched for her sake
To her and to hers / my trouthe well to take
Without ony spotte / of ony maner yll
God knoweth all myn herte / my mynde & my wyll

The hygh dame nature / by her grete myght & power
Man / beest / and foule / in euery degre
Fro whens they came at euery maner houre
Dooth trye the trouthe / without duplycyte
For euery thynge must shewe the properte
Gentyll vngentyll / dame nature so well tryet
That all persones it openly espyeth

The lorde and knyght / delyteth for to here
Cronycles and storyes / of noble chyualry
The gentyll man gentylnes / for his passe tyme dere
The man of lawe / to here lawe truely
The yeman delyteth to talke of yomanry
The ploman his londe for to ere and sowe
Thus nature werketh / in hye degre and lowe

For yf there were one of the gentyll blode
Conuayde to yomanry for nourysshement
Dyscrecyon comen he sholde chaunge his mode
Though he knewe not / his parentes verament
Yet nature wolde werke / so by entendyment
That he sholde folowe / the condycyons doubtles
Of his true blode / by outwarde gentylnes

In all this worlde / ben but thynges