[Jeff]

John Wilbye (1574-1638)

Love Not Me for Comely Grace

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1Love not me for comely grace,

2For my pleasing eye or face;

3Nor for any outward part,

4No, nor for my constant heart:

5 For those may fail or turn to ill,

6 So thou and I shall sever.

7Keep therefore a true woman's eye,

8And love me still, but know not why;

9 So hast thou the same reason still

10 To doat upon me ever.

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Initial Response:

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The poem seems, like many in its era of the English language, to endeavor to capture the inimitable magic of Shakespeare’s classic sonnets. Its language is heroic and upright, its meter an oceanic pendulum, and its subject and sentiment those of universal concern. Yet it also retains a simplicity and personality of its own without which it could be called a fraud. The rhyme scheme fits the contents of the lines with singular accuracy. The choice of word is precise and seems simply motivated, as if the form is more the vessel for the author’s feeling than the occasion for the writing. Yet, in its simplicity, it seems it risks being overlooked. There are a great many other poems in some way or another like it, and poets who execute similar ideas in similar forms with yet more exalted language. So this poem seems a kind of limbo between the epic, marred by that title with the inability to be anything less ambitious, and the banal romantic ditty that engenders more pity for the author than either admiration or empathy. There must be a reason for this poem to be written, if not to be pitied, nor to be posted for daily inspiration on tack boards or the sides of buses. So it is good that it claims its value and importance from the eternal spring of the love it proclaims. It needs no secondary motive or validation. So it is good that it is blessed with smallness and simplicity.

[ImOnFire]

*cough*