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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  To Little or No Purpose Have I Spent All My Days

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

To Little or No Purpose Have I Spent All My Days

By Sir George Etherege (1635?–1691)
 
(A Song in She Would If She Could)

TO little or no purpose have I spent all my days
In ranging the Park, th’ Exchange, and the Plays,
Yet ne’er in my Rambles till now did I prove
So happy, to meet with the man I could love.
  But, O how I’m pleased when I think of the man        5
  That I find I must love, let me do what I can!
 
How long I shall love him, I can no more tell,
Than had I a Fever, when I should be well:
My Passion shall kill me before I will show it,
And yet I would give all the world he did know it:        10
  But, O how I sigh, when I think, should he woo me,
  That I cannot deny what I know will undo me!