Internet Shakespeare Editions

About this text

  • Title: The Passionate Pilgrim (Octavo, 1599)
  • Editor: Hardy M. Cook
  • ISBN: 978-1-55058-411-0

    Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Hardy M. Cook
    Not Peer Reviewed

    The Passionate Pilgrim (Octavo, 1599)

    85FAire is my loue, but not so faire as fickle.
    Milde as a Doue, but neither true nor trustie,
    Brighter then glasse, and yet as glasse is brittle,
    Softer then waxe, and yet as Iron rusty:
    A lilly pale, with damaske die to grace her,
    90 None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.
    Her lips to mine how often hath she ioyned,
    Betweene each kisse her othes of true loue swearing:
    How many tales to please me hath she coyned,
    Dreading my loue, the losse whereof still fearing.
    95 Yet in the mids of all her pure protestings,
    Her faith, her othes, her teares, and all were ieastings.
    She burnt with loue, as straw with fire flameth,
    She burnt out loue, as soone as straw out burneth:
    She fram d the loue, and yet she foyld the framing,
    100She bad loue last, and yet she fell a turning.
    Was this a louer, or a Letcher whether?
    Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.
    B
    IF Musicke and sweet Poetrie agree,
    As they must needs (the Sister and the brother)
    105Then must the loue be great twixt thee and me,
    Because thou lou'st the one, and I the other.
    Dowland to thee is deere, whose heauenly tuch
    Vpon the Lute, dooth rauish humane sense,
    Spenser to me, whose deepe Conceit is such,
    110As passing all conceit, needs no defence.
    Thou lou'st to heare the sweet melodious sound,
    That Phoebus Lute (the Queene of Musicke) makes:
    And I in deepe Delight am chiefly drownd,
    When as himselfe to singing he betakes.
    115 One God is God of both (as Poets faine)
    One Knight loues Both, and both in thee remaine.
    FAire was the morne, when the faire Queene of loue,
    Paler for sorrow then her milke white Doue,
    For Adons sake, a youngster proud and wilde,
    120Her stand she takes vpon a steepe vp hill.
    Anon Adonis comes with horne and hounds,
    She silly Queene, with more then loues good will,
    Forbad the boy he should not passe those grounds,
    125Once (quoth she) did I see a faire sweet youth
    Here in these brakes, deepe wounded with a Boare,
    Deepe in the thigh a spectacle of ruth,
    Soe in my thigh (quoth she) here was the sore,
    She shewed hers, he saw more wounds then one,
    130 And blushing fled, and left her all alone.
    B 3