What care I tho' beauty fading
Die ere Time can turn his glass?
What tho' locks the Graces braiding
Perish like the summer grass?
Tho' thy charms should all decay,
Think not my affections may!
For thy charms--tho' bright as morning--
Captured not my idle heart;
Love so grounded ends in scorning,
Lacks the barb to hold the dart.
My devotion more secure
Woos thy spirit high and pure.
--_William Caldwell Roscoe_