Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Anonymous. 160769. Since First I saw your Face Thomas Ford’s Music of Sundry Kinds
SINCE first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye; | |
If now I be disdainèd I wish my heart had never known ye. | |
What? I that loved and you that liked, shall we begin to wrangle? | |
No, no, no, my heart is fast, and cannot disentangle. | |
If I admire or praise you too much, that fault you may forgive me; | 5 |
Or if my hands had stray’d but a touch, then justly might you leave me. | |
I ask’d you leave, you bade me love; is ‘t now a time to chide me? | |
No, no, no, I’ll love you still what fortune e’er betide me. | |
The Sun, whose beams most glorious are, rejecteth no beholder, | |
And your sweet beauty past compare made my poor eyes the bolder: | 10 |
Where beauty moves and wit delights and signs of kindness bind me, | |
There, O there! where’er I go I’ll leave my heart behind me! |