Love

Now have I learn'd with much ado at last

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

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.

✦ ✦ ✦

From Robert Jones' Ultimum Vale or Third Book of Airs (1608).

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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