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On Viol and Flute

By Edmund W. Gosse
  
  
  

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 I. 
I. PROEM.
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I. PROEM.

All ye who fain would in Love's service be,
Read these my amorous follies, and the whole
Incurable desire of my faint soul,
And then if ye be taken, blame not me!
Behold, I write to the end that ye may see
That when by winding paths ye win Love's goal,
A dark and sterile garden is the dole
For all your faithful heart's intensity;
And if a passing blossom there be sweet,
Or if a stray and luscious fruit ye meet,
'Tis but the flower of fraud and fruit of pain,
Laid for a snare in which you wring your feet,
And if you conquer these, to Love's defeat,
Torment and shame and death is all your gain.