Love
Since first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye
From Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age, ed. A. H. Bullen (London: Nimmo, 1891)
Since first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye,
If now I be disdained I wish my heart had never known ye.
What? I that loved and you that liked shall we begin to wrangle?
No, no no, my heart is fast, and cannot disentangle.
If I admire or praise you too much, that fault you may forgive me
Or if my hands had strayed but a touch, then justly might you leave me.
I asked you leave, you bade me love; is't now a time to chide me?
No no no, I'll love you still what fortune e'er betide me.
The sun whose beams most glorious are, rejecteth no beholder,
And your sweet beauty past compare made my poor eyes the bolder,
Where beauty moves, and wit delights and signs of kindness bind me
There, O there! where'er I go I'll leave my heart behind me.
Codex Note
From Thomas Ford's Music Of Sundry Kinds, 1607.
Cite this poem
MLA
Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “Since first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/117/.
Chicago
Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “Since first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/117/.
Read this poem with the Codex →