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SONG, by                    
First Line: So much your kindness and affection gain
Last Line: Still to refuse so great and sweet a love.
Alternate Author Name(s): Christine De Pisan


So much your kindness and affection gain,
My tender friend, that you have captured me;
No scruples now befit nor doubts remain;
From me reluctance you no more shall see,
So does love will by its sweet mastery;
And I too will it, so may God approve!
It were great folly were I still to flee
And still refuse so great and sweet a love.

And I have hope that so much worth doth reign
In you, that well my love will harboured be;
More goodness, honour, beauty, it were vain
To seek, and more to seek were vanity:
To choose you then is only equity.
Your greater worth my own is far above--
So did I wrong after so long a plea
Still to refuse so great and sweet a love.

If I accept you, nor from love refrain,
My dear kind heart from all deceit be free;
Let me ne'er find from you or grief or pain,
For you have ta'en me captive utterly.
Your noble maintenance and dignity,
Your eyes as soft and kind, as of the dove--
And it were guilty in the last degree
Still to refuse so great and sweet a love.

ENVOY

Dear friend, I give you love and constancy:
Such praise I hear of you where'er I rove,
That right and reason would to blame agree
Still to refuse so great and sweet a love.





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