Oxford Book of English Verse, Part 1 by  Arthur Quiller-Couch

Icarus

From Robert Jones's Second Book of Songs or Airs  (1601)

Love wing'd my Hopes and taught me how to fly

Far from base earth, but not to mount too high:

For true pleasure

Lives in measure,

Which if men forsake,

Blinded they into folly run and grief for pleasure take.

But my vain Hopes, proud of their new-taught flight,

Enamour'd sought to woo the sun's fair light,

Whose rich brightness

Moved their lightness

To aspire so high

That all scorch'd and consumed with fire now drown'd in woe they lie.

And none but Love their woeful hap did rue,

For Love did know that their desires were true;

Though fate frownéd,

And now drownéd

They in sorrow dwell,

It was the purest light of heav'n for whose fair love they fell.

— Anonymous


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