Come, clear thy studious looks awhile,
   'Tis arrant treason now
   To wear that moping brow,
When I thy empress, bid thee smile.

   What though the fading year
   One wreath will not afford
   To grace the poet's hair,
   Or deck the festal board;

A thousand pretty ways we'll find
To mock old Winter's starving reign;
We'll bid the violets spring again,
Bid rich poetic roses blow,
Peeping above his heaps of snow;
We'll dress his withered checks in flowers,
   And on his smooth bald head
   Fantastic garlands bind:
   Garlands, which we will get
   From the gay blooms of that immortal year,
      Above the turning seasons set,
Where young ideas shoot in Fancy's sunny bowers.

      A thousand pleasant arts we'll have
   To add new feathers to the wings of Time,
      And make him smoothly haste away:
         We'll use him as our slave,
      And when we please we'll bid him stay,
   And clip his wings, and make him stop to view
      Our stidies, and our follies too;
How sweet our follies are, how high our fancies climb.

      We'll little care what others do,
      And where they go, and what they say;
      Our bliss, all inward and our own,
   Would only tarnished be, by being shown.
      The talking restless world shall see,
      Spite of the world we'll happy be;
         But none shall know
         How much we're so,
      Save only Love, and we.