Why dost thou like a Roman vestal make The whole long year unmarriageable May, And, like the phoenix, no companion take To share the wasteful burthen… - Patrick Moloney

Thy throne is ringed by amorous cavaliers, And all the air is heavy with the sound
Of tiptoe compliment, whilst anxious fears Strike dumb the lesser satellites around.
One clasps thy hand, another squires thy chair, Some bask in light shed from the eyes of thee,
Some taste the perfume shaken from thy hair, Some watch afar their worshipped deity.
All have their orbits, and due distance keep, As round the sun concentric planets move;
Smiles light yon lord, whilst I, at distance, weep In the sad twilight of uncertain love.
’Thwart thee, my sun, how many a mincer slips,
Whose constant transits make for me eclipse.

Know that the age of Pyrrha is long passed, And though thy form is eternized in stone,
The sculptor’s doings cannot Time outlast, Nor Beauty live save but in blood and bone;
Though new Pygmalions should again arise Idolatrous of images like thee,
Time the iconoclast e’en stone destroys, As steadfast rocks are splintered by the sea.
Thou shouldst indeed a hamadryad be, Inhabiting some knotted oak alone,
And so revive the worship of the Tree Which, by succession, outlives barren stone.
Though thus transformed still worshippers would woo,
As Daphne-laurels poets yet pursue.

The rude rebuffs of bay-besieging winds But make the anchored ships towards them turn,
So thy unkindness unto me but finds My love tow’rds thee with keener ardour burn;
As myrrh incised bleeds odoriferous gum, I am become a poet through my wrong,
For through the sad-mouthed heart-wounds in me come These earthly echoes of celestial song.
My thoughts as birds make flutter in my heart, Poor muffled choristers! whose sad refrain
Gives sorrow sleep, and bids that woe depart Whose heavy burden weighs upon my strain.
Imprisoned larks pipe sweeter than when free,
And I, enslaved, have learnt to sing for thee.