| Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829. | | | | Epistle to a Gay Young Lady Who Was Married to a Doating Old Deacon | | By Philip Freneau (1752–1832) |
| | | THUS winter joins to April’s bloom, | |
| Thus daisies blush beside a tomb, | |
| Thus, fields of ice o’er rivers grow, | |
| While melting streams are found below. | |
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| How strange a taste is here display’d— | 5 |
| Yourself all light, and he all shade! | |
| Each hour you live you look more gay, | |
| While he grows uglier every day! | |
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| Intent upon celestial things, | |
| He only Watts or Sternhold sings;— | 10 |
| You tune your chord to different strains, | |
| And merrier notes attract the swains. | |
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| Ah Harriot! why in beauty’s prime | |
| Thus look for flowers in Greenland’s clime; | |
| When twenty years are scarcely run | 15 |
| Thus hope for spring without a sun! | | | | |
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