’Tis done — I take you at your word —
Receive my recantation!
For faith, the beauties I adored
Were all my own creation.
Last month of love and you I talk’d
And swore your smile was heaven —
But when in Birchall’s shop I walk’d,
My phoenix seem’d a raven!
“Above the rose’s fading bloom
The olive holds its station;
Above the blossoms’ brief perfume
The fruit claims estimation:”
Amanda! thus in tuneful strain
You made a sage reflexion;
For from the rarest fruits you gain
Your never-changed complexion!
What saffron tints enrich your cheek
Your quondam lover well knows —
The olive triumphs in your neck,
The plumb adorns your elbows —
Forgive, Amanda, if my taste
Affronts your rhyme and reason;
But fruits so comically plac’d
To me seem out of season.
Once as the sun-beam charms our eyes
I thought your smile could cheer me —
For like the sun in northern skies
You were not then too near me.
Yet with and truth my taste oppose;
I own ’tis wondrous silly
To leave a nutmeg for a rose,
And orange for a lily!
And why should humble red and white
Of beauty be the sureties?
One colour may one eye delight
But every one in yours is!
While orange tints enrich your hands
What patriot will not court you?
The purple of your lip commands
All King’s men to support you.
And were your eyes as Ellen’s bright
A candle would be brighter;
Or was you hand as Mira’s white
This paper would be whiter.
No more dame Nature’s favors claim,
Most wisely she denies them;
Those favors would be lent in vain
To you who never prize them.
Why give the arts of stealing hearts
To you who always doubt them?
Why give a claim to love or fame
To one so blest without them?
Donald