Poem by Louise Imogen Guiney

A Seventeenth-Century Song

She alone of Shepherdesses
With her blue disdayning eyes,
Wo’d not hark a Kyng that dresses
All his lute in sighes:
Yet to winne
Katheryn,
I elect for mine Emprise.

None is like her, none above her,
Who so lifts my youth in me,
That a little more to love her
Were to leave her free!
But to winne
Katheryn,
Is mine utmost love’s degree.

Distaunce, cold, delay, and danger,
Build the four walles of her bower;
She’s noe Sweete for any stranger,
She’s noe valley flower:
And to winne
Katheryn,
To her height my heart can Tower!

Uppe to Beautie’s promontory
I will climb, nor loudlie call
Perfect and escaping glory
Folly, if I fall:
Well to winne
Katheryn!
To be worth her is my all.

1. Of Joan’s Youth
2. Spring Nightfall
3. Florentin
4. The Vigil-at-Arms
5. A Friend’s Song for Simoisius

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