Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Anonymous. 16th Cent.26. As ye came from the Holy Land
AS ye came from the holy land | |
Of Walsinghame, | |
Met you not with my true love | |
By the way as you came? | |
How should I know your true love, | 5 |
That have met many a one | |
As I came from the holy land, | |
That have come, that have gone? | |
She is neither white nor brown, | |
But as the heavens fair; | 10 |
There is none hath her form divine | |
In the earth or the air. | |
Such a one did I meet, good sir, | |
Such an angelic face, | |
Who like a nymph, like a queen, did appear | 15 |
In her gait, in her grace. | |
She hath left me here alone | |
All alone, as unknown, | |
Who sometime did me lead with herself, | |
And me loved as her own. | 20 |
What ‘s the cause that she leaves you alone | |
And a new way doth take, | |
That sometime did love you as her own, | |
And her joy did you make? | |
I have loved her all my youth, | 25 |
But now am old, as you see: | |
Love likes not the falling fruit, | |
Nor the withered tree. | |
Know that Love is a careless child, | |
And forgets promise past: | 30 |
He is blind, he is deaf when he list, | |
And in faith never fast. | |
His desire is a dureless content, | |
And a trustless joy; | |
He is won with a world of despair, | 35 |
And is lost with a toy. | |
Of womenkind such indeed is the love, | |
Or the word love abusèd, | |
Under which many childish desires | |
And conceits are excusèd. | 40 |
But true love is a durable fire, | |
In the mind ever burning, | |
Never sick, never dead, never cold, | |
From itself never turning. |