This beautiful elequent poem surely alludes to a life of conspiracy that Sir Thomas Wyatt lived as a leader in the plot to kill Mary the first suspicions by Henry V111 that he'd had an affair with Anne Boleyn,accusations of treachery in his diplomatic life .there was certainly plenty autobiographical material to draw from to support this poem..see the inscription by two of his followers left in the Tower of London a href="http://groups.msn.com/acousticmusiciansandpoetssoundarchive/poeticheroes.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=453">Inscriptions left by followers of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Tower of London

Heres the link to the page with the sound file
They flee from me poem by Sir Thomas Wyatt 1503 = 1542


Regards..

Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this sound recording/copyright/patent Jim Clark 2002

They Flee from Me That Sometime Did Me Seek


They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild, and do not remember
That sometime they have put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be to Fortune, it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special:
In thin array, after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown did from her shoulders fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small,
Therewith all sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, "Dear heart, how like you this?"

It was no dream, -I lay broad waking.
But all is turned, thorough my gentleness,
Into a strange fashion of forsaking:
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also to use new-fangledness.
But since that I unkindly so am served,
I would fain know what hath she now deserved