Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread;
For Love is dead.
All Love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain:
Worth, as nought worth, rejected,
And Faith fair scorn doth gain.
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female franzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!

Weep, neighbors, weep! do you not hear it said
That Love is dead?
His death-bed, peacock's folly;
His winding-sheet is shame;
His will, false-seeming holy;
His sole executor blame.
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female franzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!

Let dirge be sung and trentals rightly read,
For Love is dead.
Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth
My mistress' marble heart,
Which epitaph containeth:
"Her eyes were once his dart."
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female franzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!

Alas, I lie! rage hath this error bred.
Love is not dead.
Love is not dead, but sleepeth
In her unmatchëd mind,
Where she his counsel keepeth
Till due desert she find.
Therefore from so vile fancy,
To call such wit a franzy,
Who Love can temper thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!

There dwelt a miller, hale and bold,
Beside the river Dee;
He worked and sang from morn till night—
No lark more blithe than he;
And this the burden of his song
Forever used to be:
"I envy nobody—no, not I—
And nobody envies me!"
 
"Thou'rt wrong, my friend," said good King Hal,
"As wrong as wrong can be;
For could my heart be light as thine,
I'd gladly change with thee.
And tell me now, what makes thee sing,
With voice so loud and free,
While I am sad, though I'm a king,
Beside the river Dee?"
 
The miller smiled and doffed his cap,
"I earn my bread," quoth he;
"I love my wife, I love my friend,
I love my children three;
I owe no penny I cannot pay,
I thank the river Dee
That turns the mill that grinds the corn
That feeds my babes and me."
 
"Good friend," said Hal, and sighed the while,
"Farewell, and happy be;
But say no more, if thou'dst be true
That no one envies thee;
Thy mealy cap is worth my crown,
Thy mill my kingdom's fee;
Such men as thou art England's boast,
O miller of the Dee!"