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| BLOOM of beauty, early flower | |
| Of the blissful bridal bower, | |
| Thou, thy parents’ pride and care, | |
| Fairest offspring of the fair, | |
| Lovely pledge of mutual love, | 5 |
| Angel seeming from above, | |
| Was it not thou day by day | |
| Dost thy very sex betray, | |
| Female more and more appear, | |
| Female, more than angel dear, | 10 |
| How to speak thy face and mien, | |
| (Soon too dangerous to be seen) | |
| How shall I, or shall the Muse, | |
| Language of resemblance choose, | |
| Language like thy mien and face, | 15 |
| Full of sweetness, full of grace? | |
| By the next returning spring, | |
| When again the linnets sing, | |
| When again the lambkins play, | |
| Pretty sportlings full of May, | 20 |
| When the meadows next are seen, | |
| Sweet enamel, white and green, | |
| And the year in fresh attire | |
| Welcomes every gay desire, | |
| Blooming on shalt thou appear | 25 |
| More inviting than the year, | |
| Fairer sight than orchard shows, | |
| Which beside a river blows: | |
| Yet another spring I see, | |
| And a brighter bloom in thee: | 30 |
| And another round of time, | |
| Circling, still improves thy prime: | |
| And beneath the vernal skies | |
| Yet a verdure more shall rise, | |
| Ere thy beauties, kindling slow, | 35 |
| In each finished feature glow, | |
| Ere in smiles and in disdain | |
| Thou exert thy maiden reign. | |
| Absolute to save, or kill, | |
| Fond beholders, at thy will. | 40 |
| Happy thrice, and thrice again, | |
| Happiest he of happy men, | |
| Who, in courtship greatly sped, | |
| Wins the damsel to his bed, | |
| Bears the virgin prize away, | 45 |
| Counting life one nuptial day: | |
| For the dark-brown dusk of hair, | |
| Shadowing thick thy forehead fair, | |
| Down the veiny temples growing, | |
| O’er the sloping shoulders flowing, | 50 |
| And the smoothly penciled brow, | |
| Mild to him in every vow, | |
| And the fringed lid below, | |
| Thin as thinnest blossoms blow, | |
| And the hazely-lucid eye, | 55 |
| Whence heart-winning glances fly, | |
| And that cheek of health, o’erspread | |
| With soft-blended white and red, | |
| And the witching smiles which break | |
| Round those lips, which sweetly speak, | 60 |
| And thy gentleness of mind, | |
| Gentle from a gentle kind, | |
| These endowments, heavenly dower! | |
| Brought him in the promised hour, | |
| Shall for ever bind him to thee, | 65 |
| Shall renew him still to woo thee. | |
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