Poem by Elizabeth I of England

Importune Me No More

WHEN I was fair and young, and favor graced me,
Of many I was sought, their mistress for to be:
But I did scorn them all, and answer'd them therefore,
     "Go, go, go, seek some otherwhere!
          Importune* me no more!"

How many weeping eyes I made to pine with woe,
How many sighing hearts, I have no skill to show:
Yet I the prouder grew, and answer'd them therefore,
     "Go, go, go, seek some otherwhere!
          Importune me no more!"

Then spake fair Venus' son, that proud victorious boy,
And said, "Fine Dame, since that you be so coy,
I will so pluck your plumes that you shall say no more,
     'Go, go, go,seek some otherwhere!
          Importune me no more!'"

When he had spake these words, such change grew in my breast
That neither night nor day since that, I could take any rest.
Then, lo! I did repent that I had said before,
     "Go, go, go, seek some otherwhere!
          Importune me no more!"

* beg or solicit persistently

1. The Doubt of Future Foes
2. Written with a Diamond on her Window at Woodstock
3. On Monsieur's Departure, 1582
4. Written In Her French Psalter
5. In Defiance of Fortune

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