C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Author Unknown

To Abandon the Court

FIE on this courtly life, full of displeasure!

Where neither frowns nor smiles keep any measure,

But every passion governs in extreme:

Free love and faith from hence falsehood doth banish,

And vows of friendship here like vapors vanish;

Loyalty’s counted but a dream;

Inconstant favors like rivers gliding;

Truth is despised

Whilst flattery’s prized;

Poor virtue here hath no certain abiding.

Then let’s no longer stay, my fairest Phillis;

But let us fly from hence, where so much ill is,

Into some desert place there to abide;—

True love shall go with us, and faith unfeigned,

Pure thoughts, embraces chaste, and vows unstained.

Virtue herself shall ever be our guide;—

In cottage poor, where neither frowning fortune

Nor change of fate

Can once abate

Our sweet content, or peace at all importune.

There will we drive our flocks from hill and valley,

And whilst they feeding are, we’ll sit and dally;

And thy sweet voice to sing birds shall invite;

Whilst I with roses, violets, and lilies

Will flowery garlands make to crown my Phillis,

Or numbered verses to thy praise indite.

And when the sun is westwardly declining,

Our flocks and we

Will homeward flee

And rest ourselves until the sun’s next shining.