To Love in my heart ...

By Thomas Campbell

To Love in my heart, I exclaim'd t' other morning,
Thou hast dwelt here too long, little lodger, take warning;
Thou shalt tempt me no more from my life's sober duty,
To go gadding, bewitch'd by the young eyes of beauty.
For weary's the wooing, ah, weary!
When an old man will have a young dearie.

The god left my heart, at its surly reflections,
But came back on pretext of some sweet recollections,
And he made me forget what I ought to remember,
That the rose-bud of June cannot bloom in November.
Ah! Tom, 'tis all o'er with thy gay days --
Write psalms, and not songs for the ladies.

But time's been so far from my wisdom enriching,
That the longer I live, beauty seems more bewitching;
And the only new lore my experience traces,
Is to find fresh enchantment in magical faces.
How weary is wisdom, how weary!
When one sits by a smiling young dearie!

And should she be wroth that my homage pursues her,
I will turn and retort on my lovely accuser;
Who's to blame, that my heart by your image is haunted --
It is you, the enchantress -- not I, the enchanted,
Would you have me behave more discreetly,
Beauty, look not so killingly sweetly.