XI

prove. Many a time thou must have noticed⁠— If to notice thou dost care⁠— How I go about on Monday Dressed in all my Sunday wear. Love’s eyes love to look on brightness; Love loves what is gaily drest; Sunday, Monday, all I care is Thou shouldst see me in my best. No account I make of dances, Or of strains that pleased thee so, Keeping thee awake from midnight Till the cocks began to crow; Or of how I roundly swore it That there’s none so fair as thou; True it is, but as I said it, By the girls I’m hated now. For Teresa of the hillside At my praise of thee was sore; Said, “You think you love an angel; It’s a monkey you adore; “Caught by all her glittering trinkets, And her borrowed braids of hair, And a host of made-up beauties That would Love himself ensnare.” ’Twas a lie, and so I told her, And her cousin at the word Gave me his defiance for it; And what followed thou hast heard. Mine is no high-flown affection, Mine no passion par amours ⁠— As they call it⁠—what I offer Is an honest love, and pure. Cunning cords the holy Church has, Cords of softest silk they be; Put thy neck beneath the yoke, dear; Mine will follow, thou wilt see.