| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | Were My Heart As Some Men’s Are | | By Thomas Campion (1567–1620) |
| | | WERE 1 my heart as some men’s are, thy errors would not move me, | |
| But thy faults I curious find, and speak because I love thee: | |
| Patience is a thing divine, and far, I grant, above me. | |
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| Foes sometimes befriend us more, our blacker deeds objecting, | |
| Than th’ obsequious bosom-guest with false respect affecting: | 5 |
| Friendship is the Glass of Truth, our hidden stains detecting. | |
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| While I use of eyes enjoy, and inward light of reason, | |
| Thy observer will I be and censor, but in season: | |
| Hidden mischief to conceal in State and Love is treason. | |
| | | Note 1. From Campion’s Third Book of Airs, 1617. [back] | | |
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