C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

A Renouncing of Love

FAREWELL, Love, and all thy laws for ever;

Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more:

Senec, and Plato, call me from thy lore,

To perfect wealth, my wit for to endeavor.

In blind error when I did persever,

Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,

Taught me in trifles that I set no store;

But scaped forth thence, since liberty is lever,

Therefore, farewell: go trouble younger hearts,

And in me claim no more authority;

With idle youth go use thy property,

And thereon spend thy many brittle darts:

For, hitherto though I have lost my time,

Me list no longer rotten boughs to climb.