MARY, I believ’d you true,
And I was blest in so believing;
But till this hour I never knew—
That you were taken up for thieving!
Oh! when I snatch’d a tender kiss
Or some such trifle when I courted,
You said, indeed, that love was bliss,
But never owned you were transported!
But then to gaze on that fair face—
It would have been an unfair feeling,
To dream that you had pilfered lace—
And Flints had suffered from your stealing!
Or when my suit I first preferr’d,
To bring your coldness to repentance,
Before I hammer’d out a word,
How could I dream you’d heard a sentence!
Or when with all the warmth of youth
I strove to prove my love no fiction,
How could I guess I urged a truth
On one already past conviction!
How could I dream that ivory part,
Your hand—where I have look’d and linger’d,
Altho’ it stole away my heart,
Had been held up as one light-finger’d!
In melting verse your charms I drew,
The charms in which my muse delighted—
Alas! the lay I thought was new,
Spoke only what had been indicted!
Oh! when that form, a lovely one,
Hung on the neck its arms had flown to,
I little thought that you had run
A chance of hanging on your own too.
You said you pick’d me from the world,
My vanity it now must shock it—
And down at once my pride is hurl’d,
You’ve pick’d me—and you’ve pick’d a pocket.