the shore:
Such oddities betoken love you may be sure.

CVIII.

Ah, who may tell what crowding thoughts arose
Where boiled the tumult of Love's surging sea,
That strength this world itself could not enclose,
Nor Space with infinite immensity!
But there no matter why, love is to be
While men and women both are what they are,
While eyes can wander unrestrainedly,
And light on dimpled cheeks unknown to Ma,
Or eyes that glisten like a polished scimitar.

CIX.

Some pierce as deeply, I can tell you, too,
And do the dickens in the way of slaughter,
And slash the heart to mincemeat through and through,
And make ten thousand lives some few years shorter;
Those eyes that make beholding lips quite water,
Full many a Don Giovani die o' grief,
Which yield the love-sick populace no quarter
And--(isn't it cruel?) give them no relief,
And work no end of miracles in my belief!

CX.

Which rudely tilt Love's overflowing cup,
And work a trifle in their little way;
Just tip the solar-system downside up,
What is there that they can't do, who shall say?
While for one glance a thousand pine away,
Which certainly is most disastrous when
Our span is not too long as you will say,
And what of their short three score years and ten?
But this may not apply to woman-jilted men.

CXI.

A friend of mine observed some time ago
That women were men's guardian-angels--stay,
I scarcely think it can be always so
Tho' very often certainly it may;
At any rate you know I mean to say
They very seldom put men at their ease,
Once wedded in a week can turn 'em grey,
So deuced disagreeable if they please,
And I myself have known some two or three of these.

CXII.

I do not mean that I've experienced this--
(The subject 'tis a pity I began)
I never knew that fancied state of bliss,
I'm not, my friends, in short, a married man,
So cannot judge as well as others can
Who are more fortunate and have a wife,
I would much rather live contented than
Engaged in all the wars of married life,
And what's more troublesome than matrimonial strife?

CXIII.

In fact I often "wish I were a bird"
I'd fly and fly and fly to--Heaven knows where,
And, if such happy chance to me occurred,
I'd visit all the windows of the fair,
To see if they had kisses I could bear,
And be the General Post Office above,
And do all sorts of things I do declare;
'Twere better, too, I think to be a dove,
That gentle bird so suited to affairs of love.

CX