Robert Greene (1558-1592). Familia's Song. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1907. The Book of Elizabethan Verse

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

Familia’s Song

By Robert Greene (1558–1592)


FIE, fie on blind fancy!
It hinders youth’s joy:
Fair virgins, learn by me
To count Love a toy.
When Love learned first the A B C of delight,	5
And knew no figures nor conceited phrase,
He simply gave to due desert her right,
He led not lovers in dark winding ways;
He plainly willed to love, or flatly answered no:
But now who lists to prove, shall find it nothing so.	10
Fie, fie, then, on fancy!
It hinders youth’s joy:
Fair virgins, learn by me
To count Love a toy.
For since he learned to use the poet’s pen,	15
He learned likewise with smoothing words to feign,
Witching chaste ears with trothless tongues of men,
And wrongèd faith with falsehood and disdain.
He gives a promise now, anon he sweareth no:
Who listeth for to prove, shall find his changing so.	20
Fie, fie, then, on fancy!
It hinders youth’s joy:
Fair virgins, learn by me
To count Love a toy.