`As you came from the holy land'

`As you came from the holy land
  Of Walsinghame,
Met you not with my true love
  By the way as you came?'

`How shall I know your true love,
  That have met many a one
As I went to the holy land,
  That have come, that have gone?'

`She is neither white nor brown,
  But as the heavens fair,
There is none hath a form so divine
  In the earth or the air.'

`Such a one did I meet, good Sir,
  Such an angelic face,
Who like a queen, like a nymph did appear
  By her gait, by her grace.'

`She hath left me here alone,
  All alone as unknown,
Who sometime did me lead with herself,
  And me loved as her own.'

`What's the cause that she leaves you alone
  And a new way doth take,
Who loved you once as her own
  And her joy did you make?'

`I have loved her all my youth,
  But now old as you see,
Love likes not the falling fruit
  From the withered tree.

`Know that Love is a careless child,
  And forgets promise past;
He is blind, he is deaf when he list
  And in faith never fast.

`His desire is a dureless content
  And a trustless joy;
He is won with a world of despair
  And is lost with a toy.'

`Of womenkind such indeed is the love
  Or the word love abused,
Under which many childish desires
  And conceits are excused.

`But love is a durable fire
  In the mind ever burning;
Never sick, never old, never dead,
  From itself never turning.'

Sir WALTER RALEIGH