The Lover excuseth himself of suspected Change

THOUGH I regarded not

The promise made by me;

Or passed not to spot

My faith and honesty:

Yet were my fancy strange,

And wilful will to wite,

If I sought now to change

A falcon for a kite.

All men might well dispraise

My wit and enterprise,

If I esteemed a pese

Above a pearl in price:

Or judged the owl in sight

The sparhawk to excel;

Which flieth but in the night,

As all men know right well.

Or if I sought to sail

Into the brittle port,

Where anchor hold doth fail

To such as do resort;

And leave the haven sure,

Where blows no blustering wind;

No fickleness in ure,

So far-forth as I find.

No! think me not so light,

Nor of so churlish kind,

Though it lay in my might

My bondage to unbind,

That I would leave the hind

To hunt the gander’s foe.

No! no! I have no mind

To make exchanges so.

Nor yet to change at all;

For think, it may not be

That I should seek to fall

From my felicity.

Desirous for to win,

And loth for to forego;

Or new change to begin;

How may all this be so?

The fire it cannot freeze,

For it is not his kind;

Nor true love cannot lese

The constance of the mind.

Yet as soon shall the fire

Want heat to blaze and burn;

As I, in such desire,

Have once a thought to turn.

Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD