SAINT PETERS Complaynt - by Robert Southwell: 1-36/792

Launch foorth my Soule into a maine of teares,
Full fraught with griefe the traffick of thy mind:
Torne sayles will serve, thoughts rent with guilty feares:
Give care the sterne: use sighes in lieu of wind:
Remorse, thy Pilot: thy misdeede, thy Card: [5]
Torment thy Haven: Shipwracke, thy best reward.

Shun not the shelf of most deserved shame:
Stick in the sands of agonizing dread:
Content thee to be stormes and billowes game:
Divorc'd from grace thy soule to pennance wed: [10]
Flie not from forreine evils, flie from the hart:
Worse then the worst of evils is that thou art.

Give vent unto the vapours of thy brest,
That thicken in the brimmes of cloudie eyes:
Where sinne was hatch'd, let teares now wash the nest [15]
Where life was lost, recover life with cryes.
Thy trespasse foule: let not thy teares be few:
Baptize thy spotted soule in weeping dewe.

Flie mournfull plaintes, the Ecchoes of my ruth;
Whose screeches in my freighted conscience ring:[20]
Sob out my sorrowes, fruites of mine untruth:
Report the smart of sinnes infernal sting.
Tell hearts that languish in the soriest plight,
There is on earth a far more sorry wight.

A sorry wight, the object of disgrace, [25]
The monument of feare, the map of shame,
The mirrour of mishap, the staine of place,
The scorne of time, the infamy of fame:
An excrement of earth, to heaven hatefull,
Injurious to man, to God ungratefull. [30]

Ambitious heades dreame you of fortunes pride:
Fill volumes with your forged Goddesse prayse.
You fancies drudges, plung'd in follies tide:
Devote your fabling wits to lovers layes:
Be you o sharpest griefes, that ever wrung, [35]
Texte to my thoughtes, Theame to my playning tung.

Notes

El Greco (Public Domain)

[l1] maine: Short for main sea n.; the open sea. Now chiefly poet.1579   T. North tr. Plutarch Liues 472   The winde stoode full against them comming from the mayne [Fr. le uent se tourna du costé de la pleine mer].

[l5] Carde: compass card or chart

[l12] that: that which, what.

[l19] ruth: Contrition, repentance; remorse. Now rare.

[l20] freighted: heavy laden; possibly, frightened

[l24] wight: A human being, man or woman, person. Now arch. or dialect (often implying some contempt or commiseration).1567   G. Turberville Epitaphes, Epigrams f. 34   Away shee went a wofull wretched Wight.

[l35] wrung:  to wring - To twist, turn, or struggle in pain or anguish; to writhe.To suffer or undergo grief, pain, punishment, etc. (for something).