Love

Where most my thoughts, there least mine eye is striking

by Anonymous (Elizabethan songs) c. 1588–1630

From Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age, ed. A. H. Bullen (London: Nimmo, 1891)

Love

Where most my thoughts, there least mine eye is striking;
Where least I come there most my heart abideth;
Where most I love I never show my liking;
From what my mind doth hold my body slideth;
I show least care where most my care dependeth;
A coy regard where most my soul attendeth.

Despiteful thus unto myself I languish,
And in disdain myself from joy I banish.
These secret thoughts enwrap me so in anguish
That life, I hope, will soon from body vanish,
And to some rest will quickly be conveyed
That on no joy, while so I lived, hath stayed.

✦ ✦ ✦

From John Wilbye's Second Set of Madrigals, 1609.

MLA

Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “Where most my thoughts, there least mine eye is striking.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/176/.

Chicago

Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “Where most my thoughts, there least mine eye is striking.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/176/.

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