To Fanny

NEVER mind how the pedagogue proses,

You want not antiquity’s stamp;

The lip, that such fragrance discloses,

Oh! never should smell of the lamp.

Old Chloe, whose withering kisses

Have long set the Loves at defiance,

Now, done with the science of blisses,

May fly to the blisses of science!

Young Sappho, for want of employments,

Alone o’er her Ovid may melt,

Condemned but to read of enjoyments,

Which wiser Corinna had felt.

But for you to be buried in books—

Oh, Fanny! they’re pitiful sages;

Who could not in one of your looks

Read more than in millions of pages!

Astronomy finds in your eyes

Better light than she studies above,

And Music must borrow your sighs

As the melody fittest for Love.

In Ethics—’t is you that can check,

In a minute, their doubts and their quarrels;

Oh! show but that mole on your neck,

And ’t will soon put an end to their morals.

Your Arithmetic only can trip

When to kiss and to count you endeavor;

But eloquence glows on your lip

When you swear that you ’ll love me forever.

Thus you see what a brilliant alliance

Of arts is assembled in you,—

A course of more exquisite science

Man need never wish to pursue.

And, oh!—if a Fellow like me

May confer a diploma of hearts,

With my lip thus I seal your degree,

My divine little Mistress of Arts!