Never Love Unless

By Thomas Campion 1567–1620 Thomas Campion

Never love unless you can

Bear with all the faults of man:

Men sometimes will jealous be

Though but little cause they see;

And hang the head, as discontent,

And speak what straight they will repent.

Men that but one saint adore

Make a show of love to more.

Beauty must be scorned in none,

Though but truly served in one:

For what is courtship but disguise?

True hearts may have dissembling eyes.

Men, when their affairs require,

Must awhile themselves retire;

Sometimes hunt, and sometimes hawk,

And not ever sit and talk.

If these and such-like you can bear,

Then like, and love, and never fear!

Biography

Thomas Campion's importance for nondramatic literature of the English Renaissance lies in the exceptional intimacy of the musical-poetic connection in his work. While other poets and musicians talked about the union of the two arts, only Campion produced complete songs wholly of his own composition, and only he wrote lyric poetry of enduring literary value whose very construction is deeply etched with the poet's care for its . . .

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