Walsinghame

As you came from the holy land

of Walsinghame

Met you not with my true love

By the way as you came?

How shall I know your true love

That have met many one

As I went to the holy land

That have come, that have gone?

She is neither white nor brown

But as the heavens fair

There is none hath a form so divine

In the earth or the air.

Such an one did I meet, good Sir,

Such an Angelic face,

Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear

By her gait, by her grace.

She hath left me here all alone,

All alone as unknown,

Who sometimes did me lead with her self,

And me loved as her own.

What’s the cause that she leaves you alone

And a new way doth take;

Who loved you once as her own

And her joy did you make?

I have loved her all my youth,

But now old, as you see,

Love likes not the falling fruit

From the withered tree.

Know that love is a careless child

And forgets promise past,

He is blind, he is deaf when he list

And in faith never fast.

His desire is a dureless content

And a trustless joy

He is won with a world of despair

And is lost with a toy.

Of womenkind such indeed is the love

Or the word Love abused

Under which many childish desires

And conceits are excused.

But true Love is a durable fire

In the mind ever burning;

Never sick, never old, never dead,

From itself never turning.