Woman’s Inconstancy

Sir Robert Ayton (1570–1638)

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,

Hath better store of love than brain:

God sends 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;

Yea, if thou hadst remained thy own,

I might perchance have yet been thine.

But thou thy freedom didst recall,

That if thou might elsewhere inthrall;

And then how could I but disdain

A captive’s captive to remain?

When new desires had conquered thee,

And changed the object of thy will,

It had been lethargy in me,

Not constancy, to love thee still.

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,

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;

To love thee still, but go no more

A begging to a beggar’s door.