University of Virginia Library

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286

SONG.

[Fie, fie, thou charming infidel!—listen.]

Dashwood, I dislike your jokes on matrimony: you possess too much sense to treat with so much levity a state which the first philosophers hold sacred. But your jest must not be spared, though ruin be the consequence. After all your pretty professions, I am not now certain that your passion is sincere—how am I to be convinced?

DEAR girl, I'm up to ears in love!
The fact, a thousand follies prove;
Yes, yes, I feel the dart!
Well! now I'm wounded, give the cure;
Thou'rt not a cruel girl, I'm sure,
So try to ease the smart.

‘Lord bless us! it is all a lie,’
I hear thee with emotion cry,
‘I'm sure there's nothing in't:’
‘Indeed there is, I'm sore afraid,
Nay, take the symptoms, sceptic maid,
That make it plain as print.’

The instant that I see thee coming,
My heart against my ribs keeps drumming,
As if to caper out;

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287

To make his congé at thy feet,
Pronounce himself thy slave so sweet,
And fight for thee, so stout.

From those dear lips, delicious bliss,
If saucy coxcombs steal a kiss,
My eyes so jealous roll:
Aside, I call the puppies names,
My heart is Ætna-like in flames,
Consuming to a coal.

I cannot bear to be alone;
I yawn, I sigh, I gape, I groan,
And writhe as if with pain:
Now on a sudden seize a book,
Just half a minute in it look,
Then fling it down again.

Now ruminating wild, I walk,
Nod to myself, and smile, and talk;
Now hunt for something lost;
Now sit, jump up—now stare, now wink,
On some deep problem, seem to think—
Now vacant as a post.

Now seize the violin, and scratch
A half a glee, or half a catch;
Now snatch the brush, and paint;
Now fling it down, and seize the flute,
Now hum an air divine, now hoot,
To make poor Music faint.

Now full resolv'd to visit thee,
And take a social cup of tea,
And give my heart a plaster;
I draw my watch, not over cool,
Call him a little limping fool,
And bid him travel faster.

Now bustling round the room, here, there,
I try to find my hat, and swear,
And wish him damn'd, and dead;

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288

Now raging from my inmost soul,
I roar, ‘What thief my hat hath stole?’
Then find it on my head.

Nay, nay, I'd marry thee, my dear—
Love's symptoms now too plain appear;
There's nobody can miss it:
Yet if these symptoms are not love,
And this the passion fail to prove,
Why, what the devil is it?

O that I did not love thee, girl,
And that my head, in this wild whirl,
Could keep a little steady!
But 'tis in vain, alas! to preach;
Like drowning boys, I've lost my reach;
My sense is gone already.

Yet, Sylvia, know the single elf
Has only one to serve—viz. self;
But when he takes a wife,
A hundred masters then appear;
And what is very hard, my dear,
His slavery lasts for life.