AMANDA, I, your faithful slave,
Am grieved by the conviction
That you expect me to behave
As lovers do in fiction,
To falter forth my vows sincere
In syllables disjointed;
My more prosaic speech, I fear,
Will leave you disappointed.
I ought, I candidly allow,
In sitting-rooms and places
To stride about with gloomy brow
And agitated paces;
But in athletic sports I'm sure
I always was a duffer,
And, if I tried, your furniture
Most certainly would suffer.
To prove the tenderness I feel
My duty is, I know, to
Leave quite untasted every meal,
And breakfast off your photo;
But habit proves, alas, too strong!
With appetite unshaken
I still attack (I know it's wrong)
My matutinal bacon.
Again; I clearly ought to try
To immolate a rival,
And prove my special fitness by
A process of survival;
My cowardice I much deplore,
But still, romantic fury
Would scarcely pay, when brought before
An unromantic jury.
So, if your courage still insists
On scorning thoughts prudential,
And you regard the novelists'
Commandments as essential,
With some more daring person live;
For me, a brief perusal
Of modern fiction makes me give
A kind but firm refusal!
* * * * *