Senex’s Soliloquy on His Youthful Idol

PLATONIC friendship, at your years,

Says Conscience, should content ye:

Nay, name not fondness to her ears—

The darling’s scarcely twenty.

Yes; and she’ll loathe me, unforgiven,

To dote thus out of season;

But beauty is a beam from heaven

That dazzles blind our reason.

I’ll challenge Plato from the skies,

Yes, from his spheres harmonic,

To look in Mary Campbell’s eyes

And try to be Platonic.