Fond wanton youths make love a God
All find it so who wedded are,
Love’s sweets, they find, enfold sour care;
His pleasures pleasing’st in the eye,
Which tasted once with loathing die:
They find of follies ’tis the chief,
Their woe to woo, to wed their grief.
If for their own content they choose
Forthwith their kindred’s love they lose;
And if their kindred they content,
For ever after they repent;
O ’tis of all our follies chief,
Our woe to woo, to wed our grief.
In bed, what strifes are bred by day,
Our puling wives do open lay;
None friends, none foes we must esteem
But whom they so vouchsafe to deem:
O ’tis of all our follies chief,
Our woe to woo, to wed our grief.
Their smiles we want if aught they want,
And either we their wills must grant
Or die they will, or are with child;
Their longings must not be beguiled:
O ’tis of all our follies chief,
Our woe to woo, to wed our grief.
Foul wives are jealous, fair wives false,
Marriage to either binds us thrall;
Wherefore being bound we must obey
And forcèd be perforce to say,—
Of all our bliss it is the chief,
Our woe to woo, to wed our grief.
From William Byrd’s Songs of Sundry Natures, 1589.
From Citheron the warlike boy is fled
Her careless thoughts are freèd of that flame
Wherewith her thralls are scorchèd to the heart:
If Love would so, would God the enchanting dart
Might once return and burn from whence it came!
Not to deface of Beauty’s work the frame,
But by rebound
It might be found
What secret smart I suffer by the same.
If Love be just, then just is my desire;
And if unjust, why is he call’d a God?
O God, O God, O Just! reserve thy rod
To chasten those that from thy laws retire!
But choose aright (good Love! I thee require)
The golden head,
Not that of lead!
Her heart is frost and must dissolve by fire.