This battle fares like to the morning’s war

This battle fares like to the morning's war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.

Would I were dead, if God's good will were so,
For what is in this world but grief and woe?

Simile, Anaphora & IsocolonNow sways it this way, like a mighty sea
Forced by the tide to combat with the wind;
Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea
Forced to retire by fury of the wind.Simile & Metaphor
Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;
Now one the better, then another best,
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
Yet neither conqueror nor conquerèd.
So is the equal poise of this fell war.
Here on this molehill will I sit me down.

He sits on a small prominence.

To whom God will, there be the victory;
For Margaret my queen and Clifford too
Have chid me from the battle, swearing both
They prosper best of all when I am thence.
Would I were dead, if God's good will were so,
For what is in this world but grief and woe?