Of Women's Changeable Will, anonymous

edited by Sarah Deonier

"Of Women's Changeable Will" first appeared in the second 1557 edition of Tottel's Miscellany (1557b). It was one of thirty-nine poems by uncertain authors added to the second edition. 

I would I found not as I feel, 
   Such changing cheer of women's will,
By fickle flight of Fortune's wheel,
By kind or custom never still.
    So should I find no fault to lay		5 
On Fortune for their moving mind;
So should I know no cause to say
This change to chance by course of kind.
   So should not love so work my woe
To make death surgeon for my sore,		10
So should their wits not wander so,
So should I reck the less therefore.

2. cheer] mood, disposition.
4. kind] nature.
8. chance] happen.
9. woe] sorrow.
10. surgeon] 1557b reads "surgeant"; corrected to "surgeon" in subsequent editions
11. wits] understanding, judgment.
12. reck] care.

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