So grant, I pray, my moderate request,
Nor keep me waiting thus with aching bones,
My anxious ear pressed to the tube with care,
While vainly I re-echo, "Are you there?"
The suitor in the happier days of old,
When he would woo his lady-love divine,
Beneath her window his affection told
In skilful verse and neatly-balanced line;
And even if he sometimes caught a cold,
His was a less prosaic way than mine;