Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Sir Robert Ayton. 15701638183. To an Inconstant One
I LOVED thee once; I’ll love no more— | |
Thine be the grief as is the blame; | |
Thou art not what thou wast before, | |
What reason I should be the same? | |
He that can love unloved again, | 5 |
Hath better store of love than brain: | |
God send me love my debts to pay, | |
While unthrifts fool their love away! | |
Nothing could have my love o’erthrown | |
If thou hadst still continued mine; | 10 |
Yea, if thou hadst remain’d thy own, | |
I might perchance have yet been thine. | |
But thou thy freedom didst recall | |
That it thou might elsewhere enthral: | |
And then how could I but disdain | 15 |
A captive’s captive to remain? | |
When new desires had conquer’d thee | |
And changed the object of thy will, | |
It had been lethargy in me, | |
Not constancy, to love thee still. | 20 |
Yea, it had been a sin to go | |
And prostitute affection so: | |
Since we are taught no prayers to say | |
To such as must to others pray. | |
Yet do thou glory in thy choice— | 25 |
Thy choice of his good fortune boast; | |
I’ll neither grieve nor yet rejoice | |
To see him gain what I have lost: | |
The height of my disdain shall be | |
To laugh at him, to blush for thee; | 30 |
To love thee still, but go no more | |
A-begging at a beggar’s door. |