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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  Follow Your Saint

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

Follow Your Saint

By Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
 
MY love hath vowed he will forsake me,
  And I am already sped;
Far other promise he did make me
  When he had my maidenhead.
If such danger be in playing        5
  And sport must to earnest turn,
I will go no more a-maying.
 
Had I foreseen what is ensued,
  And what now with pain I prove,
Unhappy then I had eschewed        10
  This unkind event of love:
Maids foreknow their own undoing,
  But fear naught till all is done,
When a man alone is wooing.
 
Dissembling wretch, to gain thy pleasure,        15
  What didst thou not vow and swear?
So didst thou rob me of the treasure
  Which so long I held so dear.
Now thou provest to me a stranger:
  Such is the vile guise of men        20
When a woman is in danger.
 
That heart is nearest to misfortune
  That will trust a feigned tongue;
When flatt’ring men our loves importune
  They intend us deepest wrong.        25
If this shame of love’s betraying
  But this once I cleanly shun,
I will go no more a-maying.