To you, whose temperate pulses flow
With measured beat, serene and slow,
The even tenor of whose way
...
'Twas as she slept that Cupid came,
His bow and arrows taking,
That she might feel his power in dreams
Who scorned his weapons waking.
...
Sullen and dull, in the September day,
On the bank of the river,
...
The promise of these fragrant flowers,
The fruit that 'neath these blossoms lies
Once hung, they say, in Eden's bowers,
...
With pen and ink one might indite
A sonnet, or indeed might write
A billet-doux, or, eke to raise
The wind, a note for thirty days.
...
Just as I thought I was growing old,
Ready to sit in my easy chair,
To watch the world with a heart grown cold,
...
Am stretched on the grass and am watching the sky,
As the sunset clouds go drifting by,
And wondering whether such glorious weather,
...
When I was ten and she fifteen--
Ah, me! how fair I thought her.
She treated with disdainful mien
...
When I was seventeen I heard
From each censorious tongue,
'I'd not do that if I were you;
You see you're rather young.'
...