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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  Song for a Girl

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

Song for a Girl

By John Dryden (1631–1700)
 
(From Love Triumphant)

YOUNG I am, and yet unskill’d
How to make a Lover yield:
How to keep, or how to gain,
When to love; and when to feign.
 
Take me, take me, some of you,        5
While I yet am young and true;
E’re I can my soul disguise;
Heave my breasts, and roll my eyes.
 
Stay not till I learn the way,
How to lie, and to betray:        10
He that has me first, is blest,
For I may deceive the rest.
 
Cou’d I find a blooming youth,
Full of love, and full of truth,
Brisk, and of a jaunty mean        15
I should long to be fifteen.