"You are assured," you sadly say
(If in this most considerate way
To treat my suit your will is),
That I shall "quickly find as fair
Some new Neaera's tangled hair--
Some easier Amaryllis."
I cannot promise to be cold
If smiles are kind as yours of old
On lips of later beauties;
Nor can I, if I would, forget
The homage that is Nature's debt,
While man has social duties;
But if you ask shall I prefer
To you I honour so,
A somewhat visionary Her,
I answer truly--No.
You fear, you frankly add, "to find
In me too late the altered mind
That altering Time estranges."
To this I make response that we
(As physiologists agree)
Must have septennial changes;
This is a thing beyond control,
And it were best upon the whole
To try and find out whether
We could not, by some means, arrange
This not-to-be-avoided change
So as to change together:
But had you asked me to allow
That you could ever grow
Less amiable than you are now,--
Emphatically--No.
But--to be serious--if you care
To know how I shall really bear
This much-discussed rejection,
I answer you. As feeling men
Behave, in best romances, when
You outrage their affection;--
With that gesticulatory woe,
By which, as melodramas show,
Despair is indicated;
Enforced by all the liquid grief
Which hugest pocket-handkerchief
Has ever simulated;
And when, arrived so far, you say
In tragic accents, "Go,"
Then, Lydia, then .
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