Classic Poem

To you my tongue eternal fealty swore,
My lips the deed with conscious rapture own;
A fickle libertine I rove no more,
You only please, and lovely seem alone.

The numerous beauties that gay Rome can boast,
With you compar'd, are ugliness at best;
On me their bloom and practis'd smiles are lost,
Drive then, my fair! suspicion from your breast.

Ah, no! suspicion is the test of love:
I too dread rivals, I'm suspicious grown;
Your charms the most insensate heart must move:
Would you were beauteous in my eyes alone!

I want not man to envy my sweet fate,
I little care that others think me bless'd;
Of happy conquests let the coxcomb prate!
Vain-glorious vaunts the silent wise detest.

Supremely pleas'd with you, my heavenly fair!
In any trackless desert I could dwell;
From our recess your smiles would banish care,
Your eyes give lustre to the midnight cell.

For various converse I should long no more,
The blithe, the moral, witty, and severe;
Its various arts are her's whom I adore:
She can depress, exalt, instruct, and cheer.

Should mighty Jove send down from heaven a maid,
With Venus' cestus zon'd, my faith to try;
(So, as I truth declare, me Juno aid!)
For you I'd scorn the charmer of the sky.

But hold: — you're mad to vow, unthinking fool!
Her boundless sway you're mad to let her know:
Safe from alarms, she'll treat you as a tool —
Ah, babbling tongue! from thee what mischiefs flow.

Yet let her use me with neglect, disdain;
In all, subservient to her will I'll prove:
Whate'er I feel, her slave I'll still remain,
Who shrinks from sorrow cannot be in love!

Imperial queen of bliss! with fetters bound,
I'll sit me down before your holy fane;
You kindly heal the constant lover's wound,
The' inconstant torture with increase of pain.