And what is love?
It is a doll dress'd up For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;
A thing of soft misnomers, so divine That silly youth doth think to make itself Divine by loving, nad so goes on Yawning and doting a whole summer long,
Till Miss's comb is made a perfect tiara,
And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;
Then Cleopatra lives at number seven,
And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.
Fools! if some passions high have warm'd the world,
If Queens and Soldiers have play'd deep for hearts,
It is no reason why such agonies Should be more common than the growth of weeds.
Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl The Queen of Egypt melted, and I'll say That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.'"Modern Love" follows "Where's the Poet?" in the group of undated fragments at the end of Volume I of the Life,
Letters &c. (1848).'~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed.
H.
Buxton Forman,
Crowell publ. 1895.
