Classic Poem

Fair Filamelle is my distress
With all her cruel backwardness.
She will not listen to my pain,
But turneth from me in disdain.
That fair Filamelle,
Her disdain is now my hell.
She hath bewitched me with her eyes,
As Circe did the sailor wise,
Or Egypt did the Roman Prince,
Two thousand years agone.
I've little else but weeping since,
My heart is like a stone.

If you like laughter's silver sound
Why have you dealt me such a wound,
If youth and beauty look askance
At glum and heavy countenance,
Why is it coy and cruel,
Adding to my fire more fuel?
Alas! Alas! it has no care,
Free as the birds which flit in air,
Nor heedfulness has any,
Else were its kindness not so rare,
Its victims then so many.

Ah! fair Filamelle, have pity on my moan,
Else must I die alone,
My heart is like a stone.