| |
| HO! pretty page, with the dimpled chin, | |
| That never has known the barber’s shear, | |
| All your wish is woman to win; | |
| This is the way that boys begin: | |
| Wait till you come to forty year. | 5 |
| |
| Curly gold locks cover foolish brains; | |
| Billing and cooing is all your cheer— | |
| Sighing, and singing of midnight strains, | |
| Under Bonnybell’s window panes: | |
| Wait till you come to forty year. | 10 |
| |
| Forty times over let Michaelmas pass; | |
| Grizzling hair the brain doth clear; | |
| Then you know a boy is an ass, | |
| Then you know the worth of a lass, | |
| Once you have come to forty year. | 15 |
| |
| Pledge me round; I bid ye declare, | |
| All good fellows whose beards are gray, | |
| Did not the fairest of the fair | |
| Common grow and wearisome ere | |
| Ever a month was pass’d away? | 20 |
| |
| The reddest lips that ever have kiss’d, | |
| The brightest eyes that ever have shone, | |
| May pray and whisper and we not list, | |
| Or look away and never be miss’d, | |
| Ere yet ever a month is gone. | 25 |
| |
| Gillian ’s dead! God rest her bier— | |
| How I loved her twenty years syne! | |
| Marian ’s married; but I sit here, | |
| Alone and merry at forty year, | |
| Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine. | 30 |
| |
