SONG by JOHN DOWLAND

I MUST complain, yet do enjoy my love,
She is too fair, too rich in beauty's parts:
Thence is my grief, for Nature while she strove
With all her graces and divinest arts,
To form her too, too beautiful of hue,
She had no leisure left to make her true.

Should I aggrieved then wish she were less fair?
That were repugnant to my own desires:
She is admired, new suitors still repair,
That kindle daily love's forgetful fires:
Rest, jealous thoughts, and thus resolve at last,
She hath more beauty than becomes the chaste.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...