Lines Written with a Pencil in a Lady’s Almanac

Go happy lines, yet fearful go, To meet Louisa’s secret eye! Tell what I wish her heart should know, Yet, rather than declare, I die.

Perhaps she’ll scorn ye, and despise The tribute of a heart so poor— Too valueless to be the prize Of Beauty, proudest conqueror.

Then tell her that her touch alone Destroys your pencil’d forms with ease; And say your fate is like my own, To be or not, as she shall please.

But should her gentleness now spare, Pass one short year, and ye are not! A little year shall send you where You’ll perish among things forgot;

Yet so, how envied should you be! For who is he would not prefer Before an immortality, To live a year, a day with Her?

I fear she’ll turn ye all to jest: Then let her know I’ve made my prayer, That, when by beaux, smart beaux, carest, She ne’er may feel a tender care!

But while they sigh, or kneel, or vow, Think it all done in sport and play; Or write love-rhymes (as I do now), Laugh, but not trust a word they say.