Elizabethan poets were very big on the theme of "love stinks." As a person whose dating life is best described as a debacle on good days, I can work with this.
I had this Thomas Wyatt sonnet in my repertoire for K&Q Bardic as a mildly comic piece, but it just didn't fit my vibe for the day.
Farewell love and all thy laws forever;
Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more.
Senec and Plato call me from thy lore
To perfect wealth, my wit for to endeavour.
In blind error when I did persever,
Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,
Hath taught me to set in trifles no store
And scape forth, since liberty is lever.
Therefore farewell; go trouble younger hearts
And in me claim no more authority.
With idle youth go use thy property
And thereon spend thy many brittle darts,
For hitherto though I have lost all my time,
Me lusteth no longer rotten boughs to climb.
And another Wyatt sonnet that I like for the performance potential of the repeated "abides."
I abide, and abide ; and better abide,
After the old proverb the happy day
And ever my Lady to me doth say,
' Let me alone, and I will provide.'
I abide, and abide, and tarry the tide,
And with abiding speed well ye may.
Thus do I abide I wot alway,
N' other obtaining, nor yet denied.
Aye me ! this long abiding
Seemeth to me, as who sayeth
A prolonging of a dying death,
Or a refusing of a desired thing.
Much were it better for to be plain,
Than to say, 'Abide,' and yet not obtain.
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