T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Follow Your Saint
By Thomas Campion (1567–1620)| MY love hath vowed he will forsake me, | |
| And I am already sped; | |
| Far other promise he did make me | |
| When he had my maidenhead. | |
| If such danger be in playing | 5 |
| And sport must to earnest turn, | |
| I will go no more a-maying. | |
| Had I foreseen what is ensued, | |
| And what now with pain I prove, | |
| Unhappy then I had eschewed | 10 |
| This unkind event of love: | |
| Maids foreknow their own undoing, | |
| But fear naught till all is done, | |
| When a man alone is wooing. | |
| Dissembling wretch, to gain thy pleasure, | 15 |
| What didst thou not vow and swear? | |
| So didst thou rob me of the treasure | |
| Which so long I held so dear. | |
| Now thou provest to me a stranger: | |
| Such is the vile guise of men | 20 |
| When a woman is in danger. | |
| That heart is nearest to misfortune | |
| That will trust a feigned tongue; | |
| When flatt’ring men our loves importune | |
| They intend us deepest wrong. | 25 |
| If this shame of love’s betraying | |
| But this once I cleanly shun, | |
| I will go no more a-maying. | |