Queen Elizabeth I

Ah, silly Pug, wert thou so sore afraid?
Mourn not, my Wat, nor be thou so dismayed.
It passeth fickle Fortune’s power and skill To force my heart to think thee any ill.
No Fortune base, thou sayest, shall alter thee?

When I was fair and young, then favor graced me.
Of many was I sought their mistress for to be.
But I did scorn them all and answered them therefore:
Go, go, go, seek some other where; importune me no more.

Oh,
Fortune! how thy restlesse wavering
Hath fraught with cares my troubled witt!
Witnes this present prisonn, whither

Never think you fortune can bear the
Where virtue's force can cause her to obey.

No crooked leg, no bleared eye,
No part deformed out of kind,
Nor yet so ugly half can
As is the inward suspicious mind.

I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly to prate.

The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,
And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy;
For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects' faith doth ebb,
Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web.

Much suspected by me,
Nothing proved can be,
Quoth Elizabeth prisoner.