by Keats · Cluster: Satire of Society · Epigram · Satire
Abstract
A satiric verse meditation deriding modern love as a dressed-up doll, contrasting trivial dotage with the grand passions of Antony and Cleopatra; satire of love and society.
Connections
Archetypes: Femme Fatale Motifs: Money and Gold Themes & Concepts: Satire of Society, Romantic Love, Appearance vs Reality Forms & Genres: Satire Historical References: Ancient Rome
Testo integrale / Full text
And what is love? It is a doll dress’d up
For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;
A thing of soft misnomers, so divine
That silly youth doth think to make itself
Divine by loving, and so goes on
Yawning and doting a whole summer long,
Till Miss’s comb is made a pearl tiara,
And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;
Then Cleopatra lives at number seven,
And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.
Fools! if some passions high have warm’d the world,
If Queens and Soldiers have play’d deep for hearts,
It is no reason why such agonies
Should be more common than the growth of weeds.
Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl
The Queen of Egypt melted, and I’ll say
That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.