To Fanny (1820)

Question 1

Physician Nature! let my spirit blood!
O ease my heart of verse and let me rest;

Answer 1

Throw me upon thy tripod, till the flood
Of stifling numbers ebbs from my full breast.

Question 2

A theme! a theme! Great Nature! give a theme;
Let me begin my dream.

Answer 2

I come—I see thee, as thou standest there,
Beckon me out into the wintry air.

Question 3

Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears
And hopes and joys and panting miseries,—
To-night, if I may guess, thy beauty wears

Answer 3

A smile of such delight,
As brilliant and as bright,
As when with ravished, aching, vassal eyes,
Lost in a soft amaze,
I gaze, I gaze!

Question 4

Who now, with greedy looks, eats up my feast?

Answer 4

What stare outfaces now my silver moon!
Ah! keep that hand unravished at the least;

Question 5

Let, let the amorous burn—
But, prithee, do not turn

Answer 5

The current of your heart from me so soon:
O save, in charity,
The quickest pulse for me.

Question 6

Save it for me, sweet love! though music breathe
Voluptuous visions into the warm air,
Though swimming through the dance’s dangerous wreath,

Answer 6

Be like an April day,
Smiling and cold and gay,
A temperate lily, temperate as fair;
Then, heaven! there will be
A warmer June for me.

Question 7

Why this, you’ll say—my Fanny!—is not true;
Put your soft hand upon your snowy side,
Where the heart beats: confess—’tis nothing new -

Answer 7

Must not a woman be
A feather on the sea,
Swayed to and fro by every wind and tide?
Of as uncertain speed
As blow-ball from the mead?

Question 8

I know it—and to know it is despair
To one who loves you as I love, sweet Fanny,
Whose heart goes fluttering for you every where,

Answer 8

Nor when away you roam,
Dare keep its wretched home:
Love, love alone, has pains severe and many;
Then, loveliest! keep me free
From torturing jealousy.