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(c. 1758)
I. AT length, by so much importunity pressed, | |
| Take, Congreve, at once, the inside of my breast: | |
| This stupid indiff’rence so often you blame, | |
| Is not owing to nature, to fear, or to shame. | |
| I am not as cold as a virgin in lead, | 5 |
| Nor is Sunday’s sermon so strong in my head: | |
| I know but too well how time flies along, | |
| That we live but few years, and yet fewer are young. | |
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II. But I hate to be cheated, and never will buy | |
| Long years of repentance for moments of joy. | 10 |
| Oh, was there a man (but where shall I find | |
| Good sense and good-nature so equally joined?) | |
| Would value his pleasure, contribute to mine; | |
| Not meanly would boast, nor would lewdly design, | |
| Not over severe, yet not stupidly vain, | 15 |
| For I would have the power, tho’ not give the pain. | |
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III. No pedant, yet learned; no rake-helly gay, | |
| Or laughing, because he has nothing to say; | |
| To all my whole sex obliging and free, | |
| Yet ne’er be he fond of any but me; | 20 |
| In public preserve the decorum that’s just, | |
| And show in his eyes he is true to his trust! | |
| Then rarely approach, and respectfully bow, | |
| But not fulsomely pert, or foppishly low. | |
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IV. But when the long hours of public are past, | 25 |
| And we meet with champagne and a chicken at last, | |
| May ev’ry fond pleasure that moment endear; | |
| Be banish’d afar both discretion and fear! | |
| Forgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd, | |
| He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud, | 30 |
| Till lost in the joy, we confess that we live, | |
| And he may be rude, and yet I may forgive. | |
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V. And that my delight may be solidly fixed, | |
| Let the friend and the lover be handsomely mixed, | |
| In whose tender bosom my soul may confide, | 35 |
| Whose kindness can soothe me, whose counsel can guide. | |
| From such a dear lover as here I describe, | |
| No danger should fright me, no millions should bribe; | |
| But till this astonishing creature I know, | |
| As I long have liv’d chaste, I will keep myself so. | 40 |
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VI. I never will share with the wanton coquette, | |
| Or be caught by a vain affectation of wit. | |
| The toasters and songsters may try all their art, | |
| But never shall enter the pass of my heart. | |
| I loathe the lewd rake, the dress’d fopling despise: | 45 |
| Before such pursuers the nice virgin flies; | |
| And as Ovid has sweetly in parables told, | |
| We harden like trees, and like rivers grow cold. | |
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