Love
Love winged my hopes and taught me how to fly
From Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age, ed. A. H. Bullen (London: Nimmo, 1891)
Love winged my hopes and taught me how to fly
Far from base earth, but not to mount too high;
For true pleasure
Lives in measure,
Which if men forsake,
Blinded they into folly run and grief for pleasure take.
But my vain hopes, proud of their new-taught flight,
Enamoured sought to woo the sun's fair light,
Whose rich brightness
Moved their lightness
To aspire so high
That all scorched and consumed with fire now drown'd in woe they lie.
And none but Love their woeful hap did rue,
For Love did know that their desires were true;
Though Fate frowned,
And now drowned
They in sorrow dwell,
It was the purest light of heaven for whose fair love they fell.
Codex Note
From Robert Jones' Second Book of Songs and Airs, 1601.
Cite this poem
MLA
Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “Love winged my hopes and taught me how to fly.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/82/.
Chicago
Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “Love winged my hopes and taught me how to fly.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/82/.
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