Farewell Love and all thy Laws for ever

By Sir Thomas Wyatt 1503–1542 Thomas Wyatt

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 lenger rotten boughs to climb.

Biography

Born in Kent, England, Sir Thomas Wyatt was an ambassador to France and Italy for King Henry VIII. Wyatt’s travels abroad exposed him to different forms of poetry, which he adapted for the English language — most notably, the sonnet. Rumored to be Anne Boleyn’s lover, he spent a month in the Tower of London until Boleyn’s execution for adultery. Many consider his poem “Whoso List to Hunt” to be about . . .

Continue reading this biography