Thomas D’Urfey (1653–1723)

SOME thirty or forty or fifty at least,

Or more, I have loved in vain, in vaín,

But if you’ll vouchsafe to receive a poor guest,

For once I will venture again, again.

How long I shall be in this mind, this mind,

Is totally in your own power;

All my days I can pass with the kind, the kind,

But I’ll part with the proud in an hour.

Then if you’ll be good-natured and civil, and civil,

You’ll find I can be so too, so too;

But if not you may go, you may go to the devil,

Or the devil may come to you, to you.