"When Lovely Woman"
"When Lovely Woman"
Original Text
Phoebe Cary, Poems and Parodies (Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1854): 198. Internet Archive. OCLC Id: 00271599. Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary with Notes (A. L. Burt, n.d.): 138-39. York University PS 1263 A25 B8
2 And finds, too late, that man won't bend,
3What earthly circumstance can save her
4 From disappointment in the end?
5The only way to bring him over
6 The last experiment to try,
7Whether a husband or a lover,
8 If he have feeling, is, to cry!
Notes
1] Cf. Oliver Goldsmith's song in The Vicar of Wakefield:
When lovely woman stoops to folly,Back to Line
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is -- to die.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 2000.
Rhyme