O tell me not that Youth, all youth is folly, Give me the kiss that youth doth first impress, O let me feel love's ling'ring melancholy, And smile on lips all youthful loveliness! Give me the bosom I can fondly press While Youth's hot blood is burning in the veins, O what but this is earthly happiness? This world no sweeter thing than this contains; When days of youth are o'er, life's foremost pleasure wanes.
Yes, Youth was made for such; it is enough To know in some fond heart our words abide; Oh life's not life but death without a love, All ceaseless darkness where she is denied! We know not our existence till we hide Our soul within another's there to be Its very being: like a river wide Love rolls its endless volumes to the sea, Losing itself within its own immensity.
There is a sort of torture which attends That most delightful of the heart's delights, A sort of cruelty which somehow blends With passion in its most distracted flights; And absence from a bosom that requites An all-absorbing love is as a flame Fed ten-fold, yet insatiate; it excites Those maddened cravings which the breast inflame, Those fiery, longing gasps within the fevered frame.
However, I'm too fond of pondering When it's so necessary to proceed, And on to worthless topics wandering To which my friends will pay but little heed, All those I mean who take my book and read Those matters that they studied long ago, Who of such information have no need And want to hear of something they don't know; I know what's due to them and they shall have it so.
'Twas Dora, as by now you will have guessed, Who was the burden of poor Rowland's thought, He was not merely by her face impressed But loved her to distraction as he ought, It is you know the popular report That the best love is love at the first sight; If such is true or not it matters nought, I'd rather not discuss the point to-night, It won't affect our story whether wrong or right.
I think and I've good reason to suppose This was a first-sight love, but who can say For certain if it was so? Goodness knows If he conceived it in amongst the hay: If I hear rightly ever since that day He had been somewhat quieter than before And had been known to take himself away To wander long alone upon the shore: Such oddities betoken love you may be sure.