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| HOW delicious is the winning | |
| Of a kiss at love’s beginning, | |
| When two mutual hearts are sighing | |
| For the knot there’s no untying! | |
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| Yet remember, ’midst your wooing | 5 |
| Love has bliss, but Love has ruing; | |
| Other smiles may make you fickle, | |
| Tears for other charms may trickle. | |
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| Love he comes and Love he tarries | |
| Just as fate or fancy carries; | 10 |
| Longest stays, when sorest chidden; | |
| Laughs and flies, when press’d and bidden. | |
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| Bind the sea to slumber stilly, | |
| Bind its odour to the lily, | |
| Bind the aspen ne’er to quiver, | 15 |
| Then bind Love to last for ever. | |
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| Love’s a fire that needs renewal | |
| Of fresh beauty for its fuel: | |
| Love’s wing moults when caged and captured, | |
| Only free, he soars enraptured. | 20 |
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| Can you keep the bee from ranging, | |
| Or the ringdove’s neck from changing? | |
| No! nor fetter’d Love from dying | |
| In the knot there’s no untying. | |
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