Faction that ever dwells
In court, where wit excels.
Hath set defiance:
Fortune and Love have sworn,
That they were never born
Of one alliance.
Cupid, which doth aspire,
To be God of Desire,
Swears he gives laws;
That where his arrows hit,
Some joy, some sorrow it,
Fortune no cause.
Fortune swears weakest hearts
(The books of Cupid’s arts)
Turn’d with her wheel.
Senseless themselves shall prove
Venter hath place in love,
Ask them that feel.
This discord it begot
Atheists, that honour not.
Stature thought good,
Fortune should ever dwell
In court, where wits excel,
Love keep the wood.
So to the wood went I,
With love to live and lie,
Fortune’s forlorn.
Experience of my youth,
Made me think humble Truth
In deserts born.
My saint I keep to me,
And Joan herself is she,
Joan fair and true.
She that doth only move
Passions of love with love
Fortune adieu !
E.O.
This poem was probably written by 1576. It was accepted as authentic by Dr. Grosart and published in the Fuller Worthies’ Library, Vol. IV (1872).
Professor Steven May lists this poem as “wrongly attributed” to Oxford.
