ODE by JOHN WOLCOTT

THAT I have often been in love, deep love,
A hundred doleful ditties plainly prove.
By marriage never have I been disjointed,
For matrimony deals prodigious blows:
And yet for this same stormy state, God knows,
I've groaned—and, thank my stars, been disappointed.

With Love's dear passion will I never war:
Let ev'ry man for ever be in love,
E'en if he beats, in age, old Parr:
'Tis for his chilly veins a good warm glove;
It bids the blood with brisker motion start,
Thawing Time's icicles around his heart.

Wedlock's a saucy, sad, familiar state,
Where folks are very apt to scold and hate:
Love keeps a modest distance, is divine,
Obliging, and says ev'rything that's fine.

Love writes sweet sonnets, deals in tender matter:
Marriage, in epigram so keen and satire:
Love seeketh always to oblige the fair,
Full of kind wishes and exalted hope:
Marriage desires to see her in the air,
Suspended at the bottom of a rope.

Love wishes, in the vale or on the down,
To give his dear, dear idol a green gown:
Marriage, the brute, so snappish and ill-bred,
Can kick his sighing turtle out of bed;
Turns bluffly from the charms that taste adores,
Then pulls his night-cap o'er his eyes, and snores.

Wedlock at first, indeed, is vastly pleasant,
A very showy bird, a fine cock-pheasant:
By time, it changeth to a diff'rent fowl,
Sometimes a cuckoo, oft'ner a horn-owl.
Wedlock's a lock, however large and thick,
Which ev'ry rascal has a key to pick.

O love! for heav'n's sake, never leave my heart:
No! thou and I will never, never part:
Go, Wedlock, to the men of leaden brains,
Who hate variety, and sigh for chains.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...