dots-menu
×

Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  69. Since First I saw your Face Thomas Ford’s Music of Sundry Kinds

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Anonymous. 1607

69. 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!