Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HOW TO WOO AND WIN, by JOHN GODFREY SAXE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HOW TO WOO AND WIN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Would you play the manly lover
Last Line: All the gold the twain can need!
Subject(s): Courtship


WOULD you play the manly lover
(Said a graybeard to his son),
List, my lad, while I discover
How a maiden should be won.

Woo her not with boastful phrases,
Lest you teach her lip to sneer;
Still a suitor's warmest praises
In his conduct should appear.

Woo her not with senseless sighing;
Maidens love a laughing eye:
Tell her not that you are "dying,"
Lest she, mocking, bid you die!

Woo her not with weakly whining
O'er your poverty of pelf,
Lest she answer by declining
Both your sorrows and yourself!

Woo her with a manly wooing;
Giving hostages to Fate,
All the heart's devotion showing
By its strength to work and wait.

Woo her not with idle prattle
Whom you fain would make your wife;
But with proof that in life's battle
You are equal to the strife.

Like the knight whose simple suing
Won the lady (says the tale),
When, despite their wordy wooing,
All the rest were doomed to fail: --

"Lady!" quoth the bold Knight Errant,
"Brief the story I shall tell:
I would wed thee; here's the warrant
I shall love and serve thee well!"

And, behold! his dexter fingers
Crush a horse-shoe, like a reed!
And within her lap there lingers
All the gold the twain can need!





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net