68. Devotion
Captain Tobias Hume's The First Part of Airs, &c.

Numbers from Elizabethan Miscellanies & Song-books by Unnamed or Uncertain Authors. 1605


FAIN would I change that note
To which fond Love hath charm'd me
Long, long to sing by rote,
Fancying that that harm'd me:
Yet when this thought doth come,
'Love is the perfect sum
    Of all delight,'
I have no other choice
Either for pen or voice
    To sing or write.

O Love! they wrong thee much
That say thy sweet is bitter,
When thy rich fruit is such
As nothing can be sweeter.
Fair house of joy and bliss,
Where truest pleasure is,
    I do adore thee:
I know thee what thou art,
I serve thee with my heart,
    And fall before thee.

The Oxford Book of English Verse, HTML edition