Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine.
This poem first appeared in Thackeray’s burlesque of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, entitled “Rebecca and Rowena.”
Love at Sixteen.
In answer to W. M. Thackeray, Esq. By a Pretty Page.
The affections, when young, are more prone to unite,
As the flowers of the forest together entwine,
Than when age with her vigour has frozen our might,
And manhood has gone past the bounds of its prime.
Forty years—ah! why wait for enjoyment so long,