T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Lover: A Ballad
By Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (16891762)(c. 1758) AT length, by so much importunity pressed,I. | |
Take, Congreve, at once, the inside of my breast: | |
This stupid indiff’rence so often you blame, | |
Is not owing to nature, to fear, or to shame. | |
I am not as cold as a virgin in lead, | 5 |
Nor is Sunday’s sermon so strong in my head: | |
I know but too well how time flies along, | |
That we live but few years, and yet fewer are young. | |
II. But I hate to be cheated, and never will buy | |
Long years of repentance for moments of joy. | 10 |
Oh, was there a man (but where shall I find | |
Good sense and good-nature so equally joined?) | |
Would value his pleasure, contribute to mine; | |
Not meanly would boast, nor would lewdly design, | |
Not over severe, yet not stupidly vain, | 15 |
For I would have the power, tho’ not give the pain. | |
III. No pedant, yet learned; no rake-helly gay, | |
Or laughing, because he has nothing to say; | |
To all my whole sex obliging and free, | |
Yet ne’er be he fond of any but me; | 20 |
In public preserve the decorum that’s just, | |
And show in his eyes he is true to his trust! | |
Then rarely approach, and respectfully bow, | |
But not fulsomely pert, or foppishly low. | |
IV. But when the long hours of public are past, | 25 |
And we meet with champagne and a chicken at last, | |
May ev’ry fond pleasure that moment endear; | |
Be banish’d afar both discretion and fear! | |
Forgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd, | |
He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud, | 30 |
Till lost in the joy, we confess that we live, | |
And he may be rude, and yet I may forgive. | |
V. And that my delight may be solidly fixed, | |
Let the friend and the lover be handsomely mixed, | |
In whose tender bosom my soul may confide, | 35 |
Whose kindness can soothe me, whose counsel can guide. | |
From such a dear lover as here I describe, | |
No danger should fright me, no millions should bribe; | |
But till this astonishing creature I know, | |
As I long have liv’d chaste, I will keep myself so. | 40 |
VI. I never will share with the wanton coquette, | |
Or be caught by a vain affectation of wit. | |
The toasters and songsters may try all their art, | |
But never shall enter the pass of my heart. | |
I loathe the lewd rake, the dress’d fopling despise: | 45 |
Before such pursuers the nice virgin flies; | |
And as Ovid has sweetly in parables told, | |
We harden like trees, and like rivers grow cold. | |