Friendship, as some sage poet sings,
Is chastened Love, deprived of wings,
Without all wish or power to wander;
Less volatile, but not less tender:
Yet says the proverb – ‘Sly and slow
‘Love creeps, even where he cannot go;’
To clip his pinions then is vain,
His old propensities remain;
And she, whose years beyond fifteen,
Has counted twenty, may have seen [10]
How rarely unplumed Love will stay;
He flies not – but he coolly walks away.