Women have loved before as I love now

Women have loved before as I love now;

At least, in lively chronicles of the past --

Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow

Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast

Much to their cost invaded -- here and there,

Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,

I find some woman bearing as I bear

Love like a burning city in the breast.

I think however that of all alive

I only in such utter, ancient way

Do suffer love; in me alone survive

The unregenerate passions of a day

When treacherous queens, with death upon the tread,

Heedless and willful, took their knights to bed.