She was a blushing gushing thing;
All--more than all--my fancy painted;
Once--when she helped me to a wing
Of goose--I thought I should have fainted.

The people said that she was blue:
But I was green, and loved her dearly.
She was approaching thirty-two;
And I was then eleven, nearly.

I did not love as others do;
(None ever did that I've heard tell of;)
My passion was a byword through
The town she was, of course, the belle of.

Oh sweet--as to the toilworn man
The far-off sound of rippling river;
As to cadets in Hindostan
The fleeting remnant of their liver -

To me was ANNA; dear as gold
That fills the miser's sunless coffers;
As to the spinster, growing old,
The thought--the dream--that she had offers.

I'd sent her little gifts of fruit;
I'd written lines to her as Venus;
I'd sworn unflinchingly to shoot
The man who dared to come between us: