Rosamond to King Henry

(From England’s Heroical Epistles)

SOMETIMES, to pass the tedious irksome hours,

I climb the top of Woodstock’s mounting tow’rs,

Where in a turret secretly I lie,

To view from far such as do travel by:

Whither, methinks, all cast their eyes at me,

As through the stones my shame did make them see;

And with such hate the harmless walls do view,

As ev’n to death their eyes would me pursue.

The married women curse my hateful life,

Wronging a fair queen and a virtuous wife:

The maidens wish I buried quick may die,

And from each place near my abode to flie.

Well knew’st thou what a monster I would be,

When thou didst build this labyrinth for me,

Whose strange meanders turning ev’ry way,

Be like the course wherein my youth did stray:

Only a clue doth guide me out and in,

But yet still walk I circular in sin.

  As in the gallery this other day,

I and my woman past the time away,

’Mongst many pictures which were hanging