Rocked in a rose when the nightingale sings!

What, though you tell me each gay little rover
Shrinks from the breath of the first autumn day:
Surely 'tis better when summer is over
To die when all fair things are fading away.
Some in life's winter may toil to discover
Means of procuring a weary delay -
I'd be a butterfly; living, a rover,
Dying when fair things are fading away!

Thomas Haynes Bayly [1797-1839]


"I'M NOT A SINGLE MAN"
Lines Written In A Young Lady's Album

A pretty task, Miss S---, to ask
A Benedictine pen,
That cannot quite at freedom write
Like those of other men.
No lover's plaint my Muse must paint
To fill this page's span,
But be correct and recollect
I'm not a single man.

Pray only think, for pen and ink
How hard to get along,
That may not turn on words that burn,
Or Love, the life of song!