Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, "ON MEETING - -, ESQ. IN ST. JAMES PARK ON 22 MARCH, 1776", by A LADY [PSEUD.]


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

"ON MEETING - -, ESQ. IN ST. JAMES PARK ON 22 MARCH, 1776", by                    
First Line: "one day in march, I ranged a verdant plain"
Last Line: "haste, haste away, nor trust your longing eyes: / for, charming as he is, the gazer dies!"
Alternate Author Name(s): A Lady
Subject(s): Charm


ONE day in March, I ranged a verdant plain,
Where sweets salute you from each well-dressed swain;
Where tower-capped heads with lace and ribbon vie,
Like ancient Babel's tower, to reach the sky!
Where Yemen's scents from snowy 'kerchiefs breathe,
And gales of fragrance passing coxcombs leave;
Where belles parade in hopes to be admired,
And beaux too, with the same ambition fired.
Through this gay mead one morn I vainly roved.
Nor had my heart the sweets of fondness proved:
Thought Venus' son possessed no power to wound,
Nor dreaded love, from fops who there abound.
I wandered long -- at length a youth I spied,
'Is't human! or an angel's form!' I cried --
Unnumbered loves and graces round him played,
And won the heart of each admiring maid.
So much his form does other forms excel,
As were an angel to descend in hell,
The fiends with envy would the guest admire;
Thus men with admiration and with envy fire:
Women with nobler flame the youth approve,
Admiring, view his charms, and fondly love!
For all that gazed on beauteous Henry's eyes
Yielded their hearts the willing sacrifice.
I like the rest, with thoughtless rashness, run;
Nor, warned by them, the dangerous angel shun.
I gazed -- Insensibility's no more my boast:
For in that look -- my heart, my soul, I lost!
And finding every virtue, every grace,
That heaven has giv'n to the whole human race,
United in this lovely charming youth,
I've plighted to him my eternal truth;
His every smile can captivate a heart:
Learn then, ye fair, to shun the fatal dart.
Elvira has obtained the glorious prize!
Haste, haste away, nor trust your longing eyes:
For, charming as he is, the gazer dies!





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