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| THEY may talk of love in a cottage, | |
| And bowers of trellised vine— | |
| Of nature bewitchingly simple, | |
| And milkmaids half divine; | |
| They may talk of the pleasure of sleeping | 5 |
| In the shade of a spreading tree, | |
| And a walk in the fields at morning, | |
| By the side of a footstep free! | |
| |
| But give me a sly flirtation | |
| By the light of a chandelier— | 10 |
| With music to play in the pauses, | |
| And nobody very near; | |
| Or a seat on a silken sofa, | |
| With a glass of pure old wine, | |
| And mamma too blind to discover | 15 |
| The small white hand in mine. | |
| |
| Your love in a cottage is hungry, | |
| Your vine is a nest for flies— | |
| Your milkmaid shocks the Graces, | |
| And simplicity talks of pies! | 20 |
| You lie down to your shady slumber | |
| And wake with a bug in your ear, | |
| And your damsel that walks in the morning | |
| Is shod like a mountaineer. | |
| |
| True love is at home on a carpet, | 25 |
| And mightily likes his ease— | |
| And true love has an eye for a dinner, | |
| And starves beneath shady trees. | |
| His wing is the fan of a lady, | |
| His foot’s an invisible thing, | 30 |
| And his arrow is tipp’d with a jewel | |
| And shot from a silver string. | |
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