Love
Now have I learn'd with much ado at last
From Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age, ed. A. H. Bullen (London: Nimmo, 1891)
Now have I learn'd with much ado at last
By true disdain to kill desire;
This was the mark at which I shot so fast,
Unto this height I did aspire:
Proud Love, now do thy worst and spare not,
For thee and all thy shafts I care not.
What hast thou left wherewith to move my mind,
What life to quicken dead desire?
I count thy words and oaths as light as wind,
I feel no heat in all thy fire:
Go, change thy bow and get a stronger,
Go, break thy shafts and buy thee longer.
In vain thou bait'st thy hook with beauty's blaze,
In vain thy wanton eyes allure;
These are but toys for them that love to gaze,
I know what harm thy looks procure:
Some strange conceit must be devised,
Or thou and all thy skill despised.
Codex Note
From Robert Jones' Ultimum Vale or Third Book of Airs (1608).
Cite this poem
MLA
Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “Now have I learn'd with much ado at last.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/93/.
Chicago
Anonymous (Elizabethan songs). “Now have I learn'd with much ado at last.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-songs/93/.
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