“O noble Marquis! your humanity Assureth us and gives us hardiness, As oft as time is of necessity, That we to you may tell our heaviness: Acceptë, Lord, now of your gentleness, What we with piteous heart unto you plain, And let your ears my voicë not disdain.
“All have I nought to do in this mattére More than another man hath in this place, Yet forasmuch as ye, my Lord so dear, Have always shewed me favour and grace, I dare the better ask of you a space Of audience, to shewen our request, And ye, my Lord, to do right as you lest.
“For certes, Lord, so well us likë you And all your work, and ev’r have done, that we Ne couldë not ourselves devisë how We mightë live in more felicity: Save one thing, Lord, if that your will it be, That for to be a wedded man you lest; Then were your people in sovereign heart’s rest.
“Bowë your neck under the blissful yoke Of sovereignty, and not of servíce, Which that men call espousal or wedlóck: And thinkë, Lord, among your thoughtës wise, How that our dayës pass in sundry wise; For though we sleep, or wake, or roam, or ride, Aye fleeth time, it will no man abide.
“And though your greenë youthë flow’r as yet, In creepeth age always as still as stone, And death menaceth every age, and smit In each estate, for there escapeth none: And all so certain as we know each one That we shall die, as uncertáin we all Be of that day when death shall on us fall.
“Acceptë then of us the true intent, That never yet refused yourë hest, And we will, Lord, if that ye will assent, Choose you a wife, in short time at the lest, Born of the gentilest and of the best Of all this land, so that it ought to seem Honour to God and you, as we can deem.
“Deliver us out of all this busy dread, And take a wife, for highë Goddë’s sake: For if it so befell, as God forbid, That through your death your lineage should slake, And that a strange successor shouldë take Your