Thomas Campion (1567-1620). Think'st Thou to Seduce Me Then. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1907. The Book of Elizabethan Verse

Verse > Anthologies > William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. > The Book of Elizabethan Verse

CONTENTS · GLOSSARY · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Think’st Thou to Seduce Me Then

By Thomas Campion (1567–1620)


THINK’ST 1 thou to seduce me then with words that have no meaning?
Parrots so can learn to prate, our speech by pieces gleaning:
Nurses teach their children so about the time of weaning.

Learn to speak first, then to woo: to wooing much pertaineth:
He that courts us, wanting art, soon falters when he feigneth,	5
Looks asquint on his discourse and smiles when he complaineth.

Skilful anglers hide their hooks, fit baits for every season;
But with crooked pins fish thou, as babes do that want reason:
Gudgeons only can be caught with such poor tricks of treason.

Ruth forgive me (if I erred) from human heart’s compassion,	10
When I laughed sometimes too much to see thy foolish fashion:
But alas, who less could do that found so good occasion?

Note 1. From Campion’s Fourth Book of Airs, 1617. There is another version of this song given in William Corkine’s Airs, 1610, with only three stanzas; for this version see Works of Thomas Campion, Bullen ed., 1891, p. 286. [back]

CONTENTS · GLOSSARY · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore.

Shakespeare · Bible · Saints · Anatomy · Harvard Classics · Lit. History · Quotations · Poetry