Sir Walter Raleigh (1554?–1618). Poems. 1892.
XXVIII.As you came from the Holy Land
A
Of Walsinghame,
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?
That have met many one,
As I went to the holy land,
That have come, that have gone?
But as the heavens fair;
There is none hath a form so divine
In the earth or the air.
Such an angelic face,
Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear,
By her gate, by her grace.
All alone, as unknown,
Who sometimes did me lead with herself,
And me loved as her own.
And a new way doth take,
Who loved you once as her own,
And her joy did you make?
But now old, as you see:
Love likes not the falling fruit
From the withered tree.
And forgets promise past;
He is blind, he is deaf when he list,
And in faith never fast.
And a trustless joy;
He is won with a world of despair,
And is lost with a toy.
Or the word love abused,
Under which many childish desires
And conceits are excused.
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.