| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | Faith Everlasting | | Anonymous |
| | | DEAR, 1 if you change, I’ll never choose again; | |
| Sweet, if you shrink, I’ll never think of love; | |
| Fair, if you fail, I’ll judge all beauty vain; | |
| Wise, if too weak, more wits I’ll never prove. | |
| Dear, sweet, fair, wise! change, shrink, nor be not weak; | 5 |
| And, on my faith, my faith shall never break. | |
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| Earth with her flowers shall sooner heaven adorn; | |
| Heaven her bright stars through earth’s dim globe shall move; | |
| Fire heat shall lose, and frosts of flames be born; | |
| Air, made to shine, as black as hell shall prove: | 10 |
| Earth, heaven, fire, air, the world transform’d shall view, | |
| Ere I prove false to faith or strange to you. | |
| | | Note 1. From John Dowland’s First Book of Songs or Airs, 1597. [back] | | |
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