Love
If my complaints could passions move
From Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age, ed. A. H. Bullen (London: Nimmo, 1891)
If my complaints could passions move,
Or make Love see wherein I suffer wrong;
My passions were enough to prove
That my despairs had governed me too long.
O Love, I live and die in thee!
Thy wounds do freshly bleed in me.
Thy grief in my deep sighs still speaks,
Yet thou dost hope when I despair;
My heart for thy unkindness breaks;
Thou say'st thou can'st my harms repair,
And when I hope thou mak'st me hope in vain;
Yet for redress thou let'st me still complain.
Can Love be rich, and yet I want?
Is Love my judge, and yet am I condemned?
Thou plenty hast, yet me dost scant;
Thou made a god, and yet thy power contemned!
That I do live, it is thy power;
That I desire it is thy worth.
If love doth make men's lives too sour,
Let me not love, nor live henceforth!
Die shall my hopes, but not my faith,
That you, that of my fall may hearers be,
May hear Despair, which truly saith
"I was more true to Love, than Love to me."
Codex Note
From John Dowland's First Book of Songs and Airs, 1597.
Cite this poem
MLA
Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “If my complaints could passions move.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/59/.
Chicago
Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “If my complaints could passions move.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/59/.
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