Renaissance Poetry - First Class: Wyatt

Published: Jan. 19, 2012, 6:42 p.m.

b'Mainly on Wyatt\'s "The Flee from Me," as a poem of disillusion, wonder, and astonishing subtlety and depicting the psychology of love and disappointment. \\xa0Here\'s the poem:\\nThey flee from me that sometime did me seek\\nWith naked foot, stalking in my chamber.\\nI have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,\\nThat now are wild and do not remember\\nThat sometime they put themself in danger\\nTo take bread at my hand; and now they range,\\nBusily seeking with a continual change.\\n\\nThanked be fortune it hath been otherwise\\nTwenty times better; but once in special,\\nIn thin array after a pleasant guise,\\nWhen her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,\\nAnd she me caught in her arms long and small;\\nTherewithall sweetly did me kiss\\nAnd softly said, \\u201cDear heart, how like you this?\\u201d\\n\\nIt was no dream: I lay broad waking.\\nBut all is turned thorough my gentleness\\nInto a strange fashion of forsaking;\\nAnd I have leave to go of her goodness,\\nAnd she also, to use newfangleness.\\nBut since that I so kindly am served\\nI would fain know what she hath deserved.'