Change thy mind

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Change thy mind (1597)
by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex

Published in Robert Dowland's Musical Banquet (1610), set to music by Richard Martin. The poem is dated 1597 by May.[1]

Notes

  1. Steven W. May, "The poems of Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford and Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex" in Studies in Philology, 77 (Winter 1980), Chapel Hill, p.92.
1475963Change thy mind1597Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex

Change thy mind since she doth change,
Let not fancy still abuse thee.
Thy untruth cannot seem strange
When her falsehood doth excuse thee.
Love is dead and thou art free;
She doth live, but dead to thee.

Whilst she lov'd thee best awhile,
See how she hath still delay'd thee,
Using shows for to beguile
Those vain hopes that have deceiv'd thee.
Now, thou see'st although too late
Love loves truth, which women hate.

Love no more since she is gone;
She is gone and loves another.
Being once deceiv'd by one,
Leave her love, but love none other.
She was false, bid her adieu;
She was best, but yet; untrue.

Love, farewell, more dear to me
Than my life which thou preservest.
Life, all joys are gone from thee,
Others have what thou deservest.
O my death doth spring from hence;
I must die for her offence.

Die, but yet before thou die,
Make her know what she hath gotten.
She in whom my hopes did lie
Now is chang'd, I quite forgotten.
She is chang'd, but changed base,
Baser in so vile a place.

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse