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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO LYDIA LANGUISH by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: YOU ASK ME, LYDIA, 'WHETHER I, / IF YOU REFUSE MY SUIT, SHALL DIE'
Last Line: AND FIRMLY ANSWER -- NO.
'Il me faut des emotions.' -- BLANCHE AMORY.

YOU ask me, Lydia, 'whether I,
If you refuse my suit, shall die.'
(Now pray don't let this hurt you!)
Although the time be out of joint,
I should not think a bodkin's point
The sole resource of virtue;
Nor shall I, though your mood endure,
Attempt a final Water-cure
Except against my wishes;
For I respectfully decline
To dignify the Serpentine,
And make hors-d'oeuvres for fishes;
But if you ask me whether I
Composedly can go,
Without a look, without a sigh,
Why, then I answer -- No.

'You are assured,' you sadly say
(If in this most considerate way
To treat my suit your will is),
That I shall 'quickly find as fair
Some new Neaera's tangled hair --
Some easier Amaryllis.'
I cannot promise to be cold
If smiles are kind as yours of old
On lips of later beauties;
Nor can I, if I would, forget
The homage that is Nature's debt,
While man has social duties;
But if you ask shall I prefer
To you I honour so,
A somewhat visionary Her,
I answer truly -- No.

You fear, you frankly add, 'to find
In me too late the altered mind
That altering Time estranges.'
To this I make response that we
(As physiologists agree)
Must have septennial changes;
This is a thing beyond control,
And it were best upon the whole
To try and find out whether
We could not, by some means, arrange
This not-to-be-avoided change
So as to change together:
But, had you asked me to allow
That you could ever grow
Less amiable than you are now, --
Emphatically -- No.

But -- to be serious -- if you care
To know how I shall really bear
This much-discussed rejection,
I answer you. As feeling men
Behave, in best romances, when
You outrage their affection; --
With that gesticulatory woe,
By which, as melodramas show,
Despair is indicated;
Enforced by all the liquid grief
Which hugest pocket-handkerchief
Has ever simulated;
And when, arrived so far, you say
In tragic accents 'Go,'
Then, Lydia, then ... I still shall stay,
And firmly answer -- No.



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