Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/75

       Be so unkind to leave behind
         Your love, the Nut-brown Maid,
       Trust me trul? that I shall die
         Soon after ye be gone:
       For, in my mind, of all mankind
         I love but you alone.

He. If that ye went, ye should repent;
         For in the forest now
       I have purveyed me of a maid
         Whom I love more than you:
       Another more fair than ever ye were
         I dare it well avow;
       And of you both each should be wroth
         With other, as I trow:
       It were mine ease to live in peace;
         So will I, if I can:
       Wherefore I to the wood will go,
         Alone, a banished man.

She. Though in the wood I understood
         Ye had a paramour,
       All this may nought remove my thought,
         But that I will be your':
       And she shall find me soft and kind
         And courteis every hour;
       Glad to fulfil all that she will
         Command me, to my power:
       For had ye, lo, an hundred mo,
         Yet would I be that one:
       For, in my mind, of all mankind
         I love but you alone.