The Request

I’AVE often wish’d to love; what shall I do?

Me still the cruel boy does spare;

And I a double task must bear,

First to woo him, and then a mistress too.

Come at last and strike, for shame,

If thou art any thing besides a name;

I’ll think thee else no God to be,

But poets rather Gods, who first created thee.

I ask not one in whom all beauties grow;

Let me but love, whate’er she be,

She cannot seem deform’d to me;

And I would have her seem to others so.

Desire takes wings and straight does fly,

It stays not dully to inquire the Why.

That happy thing, a lover, grown,

I shall not see with others’ eyes, scarce with mine own.

If she be coy, and scorn my noble fire;

If her chill heart I cannot move;

Why I’ll enjoy the very love,

And make a mistress of my own desire.

Flames their most vigorous heat do hold,

And purest light, if compass’d round with cold:

So, when sharp winter means most harm,

The springing plants are by the snow itself kept warm.

But do not touch my heart, and so be gone;

Strike deep thy burning arrows in!

Lukewarmness I account a sin,

As great in love as in religion.

Come arm’d with flames; for I would prove

All the extremities of mighty Love.

Th’ excess of heat is but a fable;

We know the torrid zone is now found habitable.

Among the woods and forests thou art found,

There boars and lions thou dost tame;

Is not my heart a nobler game?

Let Venus, men; and beasts, Diana, wound!

Thou dost the birds thy subjects make;

Thy nimble feathers do their wings o’ertake:

Thou all the spring their songs dost hear;

Make me love too, I’ll sing to’ thee all the year!

What service can mute fishes do to thee?

Yet against them thy dart prevails,

Piercing the armour of their scales;

And still thy sea-born mother lives i’th’ sea.

Dost thou deny only to me

The no-great privilege of captivity?

I beg or challenge here thy bow;

Either thy pity to me, or else thine anger, show.

Come! or I ‘ll teach the world to scorn that bow:

I’ll teach them thousand wholesome arts

Both to resist and cure thy darts,

More than thy skilful Ovid e’er did know.

Musick of sighs thou shalt not hear,

Nor drink one wretched lover’s tasteful tear:

Nay, unless soon thou woundest me,

My verses shall not only wound, but murder, thee.

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Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus

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Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh

Poems in English 

• Robert Burns: Poem On Pastoral Poetry : by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: On Glenriddell’s Fox Breaking His Chain: A Fragment by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Posie : by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: What Can A Young Lassie Do Wi’ An Auld Man: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Charms Of Lovely Davies: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Epigram On Miss Davies: On being asked why she had been formed so little, and Mrs. A-so big. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Bonie Wee Thing: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Craigieburn Wood: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Lines Sent To Sir John Whiteford, Bart: With The Lament On The Death Of the Earl Of Glencairn by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Lament For James, Earl Of Glencairn: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Banks O’ Doon: Third Version by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Banks O’ Doon: Second Version by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Banks O’ Doon: First Version by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Out Over The Forth: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: There’ll Never Be Peace Till Jamie Comes Hame: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Lament Of Mary, Queen Of Scots, On The Approach Of Spring: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Elegy On The Late Miss Burnet Of Monboddo : by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: On The Birth Of A Posthumous Child: Born in peculiar circumstances of family distress. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Tam O’ Shanter: A Tale by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Verses On Captain Grose: Written on an Envelope, enclosing a Letter to Him. by Robert Burns

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