Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
Follow Your Saint
1Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet;
2Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet.
3There, wrapp'd in cloud of sorrow, pity move,
4And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love:
5But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain,
6Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne'er return again.
7 All that I sung still to her praise did tend,
8Still she was first; still she my songs did end;
9Yet she my love and music both doth fly,
10The music that her echo is and beauty's sympathy.
11Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight:
12It shall suffice that they were breath'd and died for her delight.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Philip Rosseter, A booke of ayres (London: Peter Short, 1601). STC 21332.
First publication date:
1601
RPO poem editor: N. J. Endicott
RP edition: 2RP.1.248; RPO 1996-2000.
Recent editing: 2:2001/12/6
Rhyme: aabbcc
Other poems by Thomas Campion
