 | Poems and Translations |  |
24
LOVE ONCE.
Love once is nought but love alway:
They never loved whose hearts can say
Love was: for true love can not change;
'Tis only fancy loves to range.
So reasoning, this content I drew:
—Belinda might not be untrue.
They never loved whose hearts can say
Love was: for true love can not change;
'Tis only fancy loves to range.
So reasoning, this content I drew:
—Belinda might not be untrue.
She told me, perhaps thought, she loved:
But love so easily removed
Is fickleness, mere Venus froth,—
Just now I like and now I loathe.
Such shimmer of a shifting sea
Was all Belinda's “love” for me.
But love so easily removed
Is fickleness, mere Venus froth,—
Just now I like and now I loathe.
Such shimmer of a shifting sea
Was all Belinda's “love” for me.
Belinda, like the passing wave,
May much embrace, but never gave
Herself. A shell on ocean foam
Were our Belinda's likeliest home.
So, reasoning thus, content I knew:
The Unloving to herself was true.
May much embrace, but never gave
Herself. A shell on ocean foam
Were our Belinda's likeliest home.
So, reasoning thus, content I knew:
The Unloving to herself was true.
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