I LOVED a maid (oh, she was fair of face!)

So I was silent for a little space—

Yet, ’gainst the day I meant that she should hear me,

My ardent lips, I vowed, should not repeat

I scorned to merely say, “I love thee, Sweet!”

So spent long days with rhetoric and tutor,

In framing sentences I dreamed might suit her.

Oh, how I pondered what she best might hear!

No commonplaces must offend her ear:

But while for proper words my passion tarried

I learned the maiden some one else had married!