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Home  »  The Book of Georgian Verse  »  William Whitehead (1715–1785)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.

The Je Ne Sais Quoi

William Whitehead (1715–1785)

YES, I’m in love, I feel it now,

And Celia has undone me;

And yet I swear I can’t tell how

The pleasing pain stole on me.

’Tis not her face which love creates,

For there no graces revel;

’Tis not her shape, for there the fates

Have rather been uncivil.

’Tis not her air, for sure in that

There’s nothing more than common;

And all her sense is only chat,

Like any other woman.

Her voice, her touch, might give th’ alarm;

’Twas both, perhaps, or neither;

In short, ’twas that provoking charm

Of Celia altogether.