To A Lady Who Presented To The Author A Lock Of Hair Braided With His Own, And Appointed A Night In December To Meet Him In The Garden.[1]

These locks, which fondly thus entwine,     In firmer chains our hearts confine,     Than all th' unmeaning protestations     Which swell with nonsense, love orations.     Our love is fix'd, I think we've prov'd it;     Nor time, nor place, nor art have mov'd it;     Then wherefore should we sigh and whine,     With groundless jealousy repine;     With silly whims, and fancies frantic,     Merely to make our love romantic?     Why should you weep, like Lydia Languish,     And fret with self-created anguish?     Or doom the lover you have chosen,     On winter nights to sigh half frozen;     In leafless shades, to sue for pardon,     Only because the scene's a garden?     For gardens seem, by one consent,     (Since Shakespeare set the precedent;     Since Juliet first declar'd her passion)     To form the place of assignation.     Oh! would some modern muse inspire,     And seat her by a sea-coal fire;     Or had the bard at Christmas written,     And laid the scene of love in Britain;     He surely, in commiseration,     Had chang'd the place of declaration.     In Italy, I've no objection,     Warm nights are proper for reflection;     But here our climate is so rigid,     That love itself, is rather frigid:     Think on our chilly situation,     And curb this rage for imitation.     Then let us meet, as oft we've done,     Beneath the influence of the sun;     Or, if at midnight I must meet you,     Within your mansion let me greet you:     'There', we can love for hours together,     Much better, in such snowy weather,     Than plac'd in all th' Arcadian groves,     That ever witness'd rural loves;     'Then', if my passion fail to please,     Next night I'll be content to freeze;     No more I'll give a loose to laughter,     But curse my fate, for ever after. [2]