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Home  »  The Book of Elizabethan Verse  »  Thomas Campion (1567–1620)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Were My Heart As Some Men’s Are

Thomas Campion (1567–1620)

WERE my heart as some men’s are, thy errors would not move me,

But thy faults I curious find, and speak because I love thee:

Patience is a thing divine, and far, I grant, above me.

Foes sometimes befriend us more, our blacker deeds objecting,

Than th’ obsequious bosom-guest with false respect affecting:

Friendship is the Glass of Truth, our hidden stains detecting.

While I use of eyes enjoy, and inward light of reason,

Thy observer will I be and censor, but in season:

Hidden mischief to conceal in State and Love is treason.