Love Poem by Joanna Baillie

YES , Love has his changes, but be not too ready,
To number his faults or dishonour his sway;
Abuse him you may, as the billow unsteady,
But what are his changes? say, Moralist, say.
At first, I confess, full of whims and vagaries,
All wing and all fire, a wild boy and no more;
But pass a few years--then observe how he varies;
His freaks disappear, and his follies are o'er.
And who would now blame him? so alter'd a creature
More sweet is his smile, more contented his air;
More happy his mien, tho' more sober each feature,
And look at his form! see, no pinions are there.
We journey thro' life, and the hill now ascending,
New changes in life must too surely appear;
Inverted his torch, and on earth his eyes bending,
He moves a lone mourner, and follows a bier.

Then cold to the world, from its pleasures retiring,
He comes like a pilgrim to memory's shrine;
Anal whisp'ring new hopes, and, new visions inspiring,
The child is now chang'd to a seraph divine.