free-verse35 lines
To ----
by George Gordon Byron1.
When I hear you express an affection so warm,
Ne'er think, my belov'd, that I do not believe,
For your lip, would the soul of suspicion disarm,
And your eye beams a ray, which can never deceive.
2.
Yet still, this fond bosom regrets whilst adoring,
That love like the leaf, must fall into the sear,
That age will come on, when remembrance deploring,
Contemplates the scenes of her youth, with a tear.
3.
That the time must arrive, when no longer retaining
Their auburn, these locks must wave thin to the breeze.
When a few silver hairs of those tresses remaining,
Prove nature a prey to decay, and disease.
4.
'Tis this, my belov'd, which spreads gloom o'er my features
Tho' I ne'er shall presume to arraign the decree;
Which God has proclaim'd as the fate of his creatures,
In the death which one day will deprive me of thee.
5.
No jargon of priests o'er our union was mutter'd,
To rivet the fetters of husband and wife;
By our lips, by our hearts, were our vows alone utter'd,
To perform them, in full, would ask more than a life.
6.
But as death my belov'd, soon or late, shall o'ertake us,
And our breasts which alive with such sympathy glow,
Will sleep in the grave, till the blast shall awake us,
When calling the dead, in earth's bosom laid low.
7.
Oh! then let us drain, while we may, draughts of pleasure,
Which from passion like ours will unceasingly flow;
Let us pass round the cup of love's bliss in full measure,
And quaff the contents as our nectar below.