driven mad by a gap in my memory

[x_los]

There was a (Cavalier, I think?) poem that began with something like "Go and." It was instructions to search the world for all manner of impossible things and ended with the poet saying that even if the person he instructed did all this, he'd never be able to find a 'woman true' or 'woman fair and true.' True as in constant- he didn't doubt the veracity of her womanhood. I can't remember the intervening text, or who wrote it, and it REALLY is frustrating me. Anyone know?

Comments

Mystery Solved by Fatima, who ROCKS

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Go and catch a falling star: John Dunne


GO and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.