But true love is a lasting fire,
[Which viewless vestals[467] tend,
That burnes for ever in the soule,
And knowes nor change, nor end.']
⁂
[The following version is reprinted from the Folio MS. (ed. Hales and Furnivall, vol. iii. p. 471.)
"As: yee came ffrom the holy Land
of Walsingham,
Mett you not with my true loue
by the way as you came?" 4
"how shold I know your true loue,
that haue mett many a one
as I cam ffrom the holy Land,
that haue come, that haue gone?" 8
"Shee is neither white nor browne,
but as the heauens ffaire;
there is none hathe their fforme diuine
on the earth or the ayre." 12
"such a one did I meete, good Sir,
with an angellike fface,
who like a nimph, like a queene, did appeare
in her gate, in her grace." 16
"Shee hath left me heere alone,
all alone as vnknowne,
who sometime loued me as her liffe
and called me her owne." 20
"What is the cause shee hath left thee alone,
and a new way doth take,
that sometime did loue thee as her selfe,
and her ioy did thee make?" 24
"I haue loued her all my youth,
but now am old, as you see.
loue liketh not the ffalling ffruite
nor the whithered tree; 28
for loue is like a carlesse child,
and fforgetts promise past:
he is blind, he is deaffe when he list,
and infaith neuer ffast; 32