Mary Neele

My love is tall and handsome;         All hearts she might command;         She's matchless for her beauty,         The queen of all the land.         She has my heart in keeping,         For which there's no repeal,         For the fairest of all woman kind         Is my love, Mary Neele.         I felt my soul enchanted         To view this turtle dove,         That lately seems descended         From heavenly bowers of love;         And might I have the fortune         My wishes could reveal,         I'd turn my back on splendour         And fly to Mary Neele.         She is the flower of nations,         The diamond of my eye;         All others are but gloworms         That in her splendour die.         As shining stars all vanish         When suns their light reveal,         So beauties shrink to shadows         At the feet of Mary Neele.         I ask no better fortune         Than to embrace her charms;         Like Plato I would laugh at wealth         While she was in my arms;         And if I cannot gain her         From grief there's no appeal;         My joy, my pain, my life, my all         Are fixed with Mary Neele.         The stone of vain philosophers,         That wonder-working toy,         The golden fleece of Jason,         That Helen stole from Troy,         The beauty and the riches         That all these fames unseal,         Are nothing all, and less than that,         Compared to Mary Neele.         O if I cannot gain her         Right wretched must I be,         And caves and lonely mountains         Must be the life for me,         To pine in gloom and sorrow,         And hide the deaths I feel,         For light nor life I may not share         When lost to Mary Neele.