Who can acknowledge that large love in nought
But this lean wish; that fate soon send you those
Who may requite your rhymes with midnight prose?
Meantime, may all delights and pleasing themes
Like masquers revel in your maiden dreams,
Whilst dull to write, and to do more unmeet,
20I, as the night invites me, fall asleep.
To a Lady.] Malone MS. 22, at fol. 34, has a first draft of this poem, in which ll. 1-10 appear thus:
Doubtless the Thespian Spring doth overflow
His learned bank: else how should ladies grow