3. To tell his might my wit may not suffice; Foolish men he can make them out of wise;— For he may do all that he will devise; Loose livers he can make abate their vice, And proud hearts can make tremble in a trice. 4. In brief, the whole of what he will, he may; Against him dare not any wight say nay; To humble or afflict whome’er he will, To gladden or to grieve, he hath like skill; But most his might he sheds on the eve of May. 5. For every true heart, gentle heart and free, That with him is, or thinketh so to be, Now against May shall have some stirring—whether To joy, or be it to some mourning; never At other time, methinks, in like degree. 6. For now when they may hear the small birds’ song, And see the budding leaves the branches throng. This unto their remembrance doth bring All kinds of pleasure mixed with sorrowing, And longing of sweet thoughts that ever long. 7. And of that longing heaviness doth come, Whence oft great sickness grows of heart and home; Sick are they all for lack of their desire; And thus in May their hearts are set on fire, So that they burn forth in great martyrdom. 8. In sooth, I speak from feeling, what though now Old am I, and to genial pleasure slow; Yet have I felt of sickness through the May, Both hot and cold, and heart-aches every day,— How hard, alas! to bear, I only know. 9. Such shaking doth the fever in me keep, Through all this May that I have little sleep; And also ’tis not likely unto me, That any living heart should sleepy be In which love’s dart its fiery point doth steep. 10. But tossing lately on a sleepless bed, I of a token thought which lovers heed; How among them it was a common tale, That it was good to hear the nightingale, Ere the vile cuckoo’s note be utteréd. 11. And then I thought anon as it was day, I gladly would go somewhere to essay If I perchance a nightingale might hear, For yet had I heard none, of all that year, And it was then the third night of the May.
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