To a Lady Who Presented to the Author a Lock of Hair Braided With His Own, and Appointed a Night in December to Meet Him in the Garden
Lines:44Movement:Romanticism
These locks, which fondly thus entwine,In firmer chains our hearts confine,Than all th' unmeaning protestationsWhich swell with nonsense, love orations.Our love is fix'd, I think we've prov'd it;Nor time, nor place, nor art have mov'd it;Then wherefore should we sigh and whine,With groundless jealousy repine;With silly whims, and fancies frantic,Merely to make our love romantic?Why should you weep, like _Lydia Languish_,And fret with self-created anguish?Or doom the lover you have chosen,On winter nights to sigh half frozen;In leafless shades, to sue for pardon,Only because the scene's a garden?For gardens seem, by one consent,(Since Shakespeare set the precedent;Since Juliet first declar'd her passion)To form the place of assignation.Oh! would some modern muse inspire,And seat her by a _sea-coal_ fire;Or had the bard at Christmas written,And laid the scene of love in Britain;He surely, in commiseration,Had chang'd the place of declaration.In Italy, I've no objection,Warm nights are proper for reflection;But here our climate is so rigid,That love itself, is rather frigid:Think on our chilly situation,And curb this rage for imitation.Then let us meet, as oft we've done,Beneath the influence of the sun;Or, if at midnight I must meet you,Within your mansion let me greet you:'There', we can love for hours together,Much better, in such snowy weather,Than plac'd in all th' Arcadian groves,That ever witness'd rural loves;'Then', if my passion fail to please,Next night I'll be content to freeze;No more I'll give a loose to laughter,But curse my fate, for ever after.