When ’twas the odour which her breath forth cast;
And there for honey bees have sought in vain,
And, beat from thence, have lighted there again.”
Or, as Lamb puts it, lovers sometimes
“borrow language of dislike;
And instead of ‘dearest Miss,’
Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss,
And those forms of old admiring.
Call her cockatrice and siren,
Basilisk and all that’s evil,