LOVE IN A COTTAGE

THEY may talk of love in a cottage, And bowers of trellised vine,— Of nature bewitchingly simple, And milkmaids half divine; They may talk of the pleasure of sleeping In the shade of a spreading tree, And a walk in the fields at morning By the side of a footstep free. But give me a sly flirtation By the light of a chandelier, With music to play in the pauses, And nobody very near: Or a seat on a silken sofa, With a glass of pure old wine, And mamma too blind to discover The small white hand in mine. Your love in a cottage is hungry, Your vine is a nest for flies, Your milkmaid shocks the Graces, And simplicity talks of pies. You lie down to your shady slumber And wake with a bug in your ear, And your damsel that walks in the morning Is shod like a mountaineer. True love is at home on a carpet, And mightily likes his ease, And true love has an eye for a dinner, And starves beneath shady trees. His wing is the fan of a lady, His foot’s an invisible thing, And his arrow is tipped with a jewel And shot from a silver string. Nathaniel Parker Willis.