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

Author Unknown

OH what a plague is love!

I cannot bear it.

She will inconstant prove,

I greatly fear it;

It so torments my mind

That my heart faileth.

She wavers with the wind

As a ship saileth;

Please her the best I may,

She looks another way:

Alack and well-a-day!

Phillida flouts me.

I often heard her say

That she loved posies:

In the last month of May

I gave her roses,

Cowslips and gilliflowers,

And the sweet lily,

I got to deck the bowers

Of my dear Philly;

She did them all disdain,

And threw them back again;

Therefore ’tis flat and plain,

Phillida flouts me.

Which way soe’er I go,

She still torments me;

And whatsoe’er I do,

Nothing contents me:

I fade and pine away

With grief and sorrow;

I fall quite to decay,

Like any shadow:

Since ’twill no better be,

I’ll bear it patiently;

Yet all the world may see

Phillida flouts me.