TO AMANDA.
Amanda, I, your faithful slave, Am grieved by the conviction That you expect me to behave As lovers do in fiction, To falter forth my vows sincere In syllables disjointed; My more prosaic speech, I fear, Will leave you disappointed.
I ought, I candidly allow, In sitting-rooms and places To stride about with gloomy brow And agitated paces; But in athletic sports I'm sure I always was a duffer, And, if I tried, your furniture Most certainly would suffer.
To prove the tenderness I feel My duty is, I know, to Leave quite untasted every meal, And breakfast off your photo; But habit proves, alas, too strong! With appetite unshaken I still attack (I know it's wrong) My matutinal bacon.
Again; I clearly ought to try To immolate a rival, And prove my special fitness by A process of survival; My cowardice I much deplore, But still, romantic fury Would scarcely pay, when brought before An unromantic jury.
So, if your courage still insists On scorning thoughts prudential, And you regard the novelists' Commandments as essential, With some more daring person live; For me, a brief perusal Of modern fiction makes me give A kind but firm refusal!