OMIT, omit, my simple friend, | |
| Still to inquire how parties tend, | |
| Or what we fix with foreign powers. | |
| If France and we are really friends, | |
| And what the Russian Czar intends, | 5 |
| Is no concern of ours. | |
| |
| Us not the daily quickening race | |
| Of the invading populace | |
| Shall draw to swell that shouldering herd. | |
| Mourn will we not your closing hour, | 10 |
| Ye imbeciles in present power, | |
| Doom’d, pompous, and absurd! | |
| |
| And let us bear, that they debate | |
| Of all the engine-work of state, | |
| Of commerce, laws, and policy, | 15 |
| The secrets of the world’s machine, | |
| And what the rights of man may mean, | |
| With readier tongue than we. | |
| |
| Only, that with no finer art | |
| They cloak the troubles of the heart | 20 |
| With pleasant smile, let us take care; | |
| Nor with a lighter hand dispose | |
| Fresh garlands of this dewy rose, | |
| To crown Eugenia’s hair. | |
| |
| Of little threads our life is spun, | 25 |
| And he spins ill, who misses one. | |
| But is thy fair Eugenia cold? | |
| Yet Helen had an equal grace, | |
| And Juliet’s was as fair a face, | |
| And now their years are told. | 30 |
| |
| The day approaches, when we must | |
| Be crumbling bones and windy dust; | |
| And scorn us as our mistress may, | |
| Her beauty will no better be | |
| Than the poor face she slights in thee, | 35 |
| When dawns that day, that day. | |
| |
