[Love not me for comely grace,]1
For my pleasing eye or [my pleasing]2 face,
Nor for any outward part,
[No,]3 nor for [my]4 constant heart:
  For [these]5 may [fail]6 or turn to ill,
   So [thou]7 and I shall sever:
Keep, therefore, a true [woman's]8 eye,
And love me still but know not why;
  So [hast thou]9 the same reason still
   To [doat upon]10 me ever!

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Baxter: "Love me not for comely grace"
² added by Baxter.
³ omitted by Baxter.
⁴ Baxter: "a"
⁵ Head, Wilbye: "those"
⁶ Wilbye: "fade"
⁷ Baxter: "you"
⁸ Baxter: "lover's"
⁹ Baxter: "you have"
¹⁰ Baxter: "dote on"

Authorship

• by Anonymous / Unidentified Author [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

• by Garth Baxter (b. 1946), "Love me not for comely grace" [voice and guitar or SATB chorus], from Three madrigals, no. 3. [
   text verified 1 time
  ]
• by Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927), "Love me not for comely grace", 1972-3 [high voice and piano], from A Miscellany of Love Songs, no. 3. [
   text not verified 
  ]
• by Michael (Dewar) Head (1900 - 1976), "Love not me for comely grace", 1921, published 1921. [
   text verified 1 time
  ]
• by John Jeffreys (1927 - 2010), "Love me not for comely grace" [voice and piano] [
   text not verified 
  ]
• by Joel Weiss , "Love not me", 1998. [voice and piano] [
   text not verified 
  ]
• by John Wilbye (1574 - 1638), "Love me not for comely grace", published 1609 [vocal quartet], from the collection Second Set of Madrigals, madrigal [
   text verified 1 time
  ]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Text added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Last modified: 2014-06-16 10:01:17
Line count: 10
Word count: 65