Love

How shall I then describe my Love?

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

How shall I then describe my Love?
When all men's skilful art
Is far inferior to her worth,
To praise the unworthiest part.

She's chaste in looks, mild in her speech,
In actions all discreet,
Of nature loving, pleasing most,
In virtue all complete.

And for her voice a Philomel,
Her lips may all lips scorn;
No sun more clear than is her eye,
In brightest summer morn.

A mind wherein all virtues rest
And take delight to be,
And where all virtues graft themselves
In that most fruitful tree:

A tree that India doth not yield,
Nor ever yet was seen,
Where buds of virtue always spring,
And all the year grow green.

That country's blest wherein she grows,
And happy is that rock
From whence she springs: but happiest he
That grafts in such a stock.

✦ ✦ ✦

From Thomas Ford's Music of Sundry Kinds, 1607.

MLA

Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “How shall I then describe my Love?” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/49/.

Chicago

Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “How shall I then describe my Love?” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/49/.

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