Dear Heart, How Like You This? by Wendy J. Dunn

May, 1536. The poet Sir Thomas Wyatt, released from imprisonment in the Tower of London, is in his fathers custody. From almost the beginning of his life, Tom has loved his cousin Anne Boleyn, content to sit at her feet while she sang her love songs to another, if doing so gave him just a moment in her company. Now he is heartsick and despairing, having witnessed her juridical murder by Henry VIII. Only wanting to escape from the recent memories now rending his heart, Tom recounts his story, a story which narrates too the tragic tale of Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII.

They flee from me

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 put themself in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range,

Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise

Twenty times better; but once in special,

In thin array, after a pleasant guise,

When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,

And she me caught in her arms long and small,

Therewithal 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 newfangleness.

But since that I so kindely am served,

I fain would know what she hath deserved.

They Flee From Me is a poem written by Thomas Wyatt.It is written in Rhyme royal and was included in Arthur Quiller-Couch's edition of the Oxford Book of English Verse.The poem has been described as possibly autobiographical, and referring to any one of Wyatt's affairs with high-born women of the court of Henry VIII, perhaps with Anne Boleyn

source:wikipedia