Let it not your wonder move,
Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have, my peers;
Poets, though divine, are men:
Some have loved as old again.
And it is not always face,
Clothes, or fortune gives the grace,
Or the feature, or the youth;
But the language, and the truth,
With the ardour and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion.
If you will then read the story,
First prepare you to be sorry
That you never knew till now
Either whom to love, or how;
But be glad as soon with me,

Let love speak forth in deeds, just as the Spring
Is heralded within the woods in May,
When tulips rear their heads and blithe birds sing
Upon the leafy boughs. No lips could say
What treasured store lies in a tender heart.
Let love be mute! Silence could ne'er conceal
The blossom of the soul, nor speech impart
The inward perfectness love's deeds reveal!

Life takes some dust,
A little rust,
A crust
Of bread,
And makes a must—
Blood hot and red;—
And joy, and pain, and love, and lust
Rise from the dead.

I cannot love, as I have lov'd before:
For, I'm grown old; &, with mine age, grown poore:
Love must be fed by wealth: this blood of mine
Must needs wax cold, if wanting bread and wine.

C O ming a tender Girl from School,
Marrying, I met a thund'ring Tool:
But fit for Love's Embraces grown,
I've got a Man that's next to none.
The first with Youth's too vig'rous Warmth inspir'd,
With Love's untasted Joys my Weakness tir'd.
My second grunting Spark, cold to Love's Charms,
He fills my Bed, 'tis true, but not my Arms.
When I'd no Appetite, Love cloy'd me;
Now I've a Mind to't, 'tis deny'd me.
Oh! Hymen, Hymen, for my Quiet,
Contract my Stomach, or enlarge my Diet.

I love the mossy fountain
And the primrose by its brim
Where the silty sand keeps mounting
And the weeds with wet are dim
When hot suns drys ground starker
And morn sheds pearls o' dew
Where I sat with Mary Darker
A Maiden fair and true.

Her bonny white straw bonnet
Was sweet and fair to see
While flowered ribbons danced upon it
Like the princy feathered tree
Half boots her ancles hideing
The calves swelled from their tops
Spite o' her muttered chideing
The traveller nearly stops.

Admiring without mention
The beautys they display

Two things thou shalt not long for, if thou love a mind serene;—
A woman to thy wife, though she were a crowned queen;
And the second, borrowed money,—though the smiling lender say,
That he will not demand the debt until the Judgment Day.

Eyes of beauty, eyes of fire,
Rousing in me mad desire,
Rousing love that cannot tire;

Eyes of beauty, eyes of green,
Sea-sweet colour, seldom seen,
Rippling eyelashes between;

Eyes of beauty, eyes of brown,
Lovely, lowly, looking down,
Conquering wholly whom they crown;

Eyes of beauty, eyes of grey,
Soft as night-time, bright as day,
Born to govern, born to sway;

Eyes of green and brown and grey,
Fairer than noon's sunniest ray,
I love you more than words can say!

Upon the noontide's perfect blue
There sleeps a perfect cloud;
The lily's faultless form is hid
Within her leafy shroud.

The cloud lets fall her silver wing
And fades the perfect blue;
The lily's form betrays a fault—
Alas, love! art thou true?

When life is quite through with
and leaves say alas,
much is to do
for the swallow, that closes
a flight in the blue;

when love's had his tears out,
perhaps shall pass
a million years
(while a bee dozes
on the poppies, the dears;

when all's done and said, and
under the grass
lies her head
by oaks and roses