1694 / London

Sweet Regret

Tags:: 1690s,; John Dryden,; London,; poetry

Young I am, and yet unskill’d
How to make a lover yield;
How to keep, or how to gain,
When to love, and when to feign.

Take me, take me, some of you,
While I yet am young and true;
Ere I can my soul disguise,
Heave my breasts, and roll my eyes.

Stay not till I learn the way,
How to lie, and to betray:
He that has me first, is blest,
For I may deceive the rest.

Could I find a blooming youth,
Full of love, and full of truth,
Brisk, and of a jaunty mien,
I should long to be fifteen.

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Published In

Eros

About the Text

John Dryden, "Song for a Girl." Poet, dramatist, and critic, Dryden excelled at writing public poetry, contributing to a memorial volume for Oliver Cromwell in 1659, composing "To His Sacred Majesty" for the coronation of Charles II in 1661, and publishing "Annus Mirabilis" to commemorate a British naval victory in 1667.

There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.