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Home  »  The Book of Restoration Verse  »  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

To a Lady Making Love

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762)

GOOD madam, when ladies are willing,

A man must needs look like a fool;

For me I would not give a shilling

For one who would love out of rule.

You should leave us to guess by your blushing,

And not speak the matter so plain;

’Tis our’s to write and be pushing,

’Tis yours to affect disdain.

That you’re in a terrible taking,

By all these sweet oglings I see,

But the fruit that can fall without shaking,

Indeed is too mellow for me.