Alas! So All Things Now Do Hold Their Peace

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Alas! so all things now do hold their peace,
  Heaven and earth disturbed in nothing.
  The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease,
  The night{:e}s chare the stars about doth bring.
  Calm is the sea, the waves work less and less:
  So am not I, whom love, alas, doth wring,
  Bringing before my face the great increase
  Of my desires, whereat I weep and sing
  In joy and woe, as in a doubtful ease.
  For my sweet thoughts sometime do pleasure bring,
  But by and by the cause of my disease
  Gives me a pang that inwardly doth sting,
  When that I think what grief it is again
  To live and lack the thing should rid my pain.

© Henry Howard