REPLY TO SOME VERSES OF J. M. B. PIGOT, ESQ., ON THE CRUELTY OF HIS MISTRESS. [1]

1.

    Why, Pigot, complain
    Of this damsel’s disdain,
  Why thus in despair do you fret? 
    For months you may try,
    Yet, believe me, a sigh

  Will never obtain a coquette.

2.

     Would you teach her to love? 
     For a time seem to rove;
  At first she may frown in a pet;
     But leave her awhile,
     She shortly will smile,
  And then you may kiss your coquette.

3.

     For such are the airs
     Of these fanciful fairs,
  They think all our homage a debt: 
     Yet a partial neglect

     Soon takes an effect,
  And humbles the proudest coquette.

4.

     Dissemble your pain,
     And lengthen your chain,
  And seem her hauteur to regret;

     If again you shall sigh,
     She no more will deny,
  That yours is the rosy coquette.

5.

     If still, from false pride, [iv]
     Your pangs she deride,
  This whimsical virgin forget;
     Some other admire,
     Who will melt with your fire,
  And laugh at the little coquette.

6.

     For me, I adore
     Some twenty or more,
  And love them most dearly; but yet,
     Though my heart they enthral,
     I’d abandon them all,
  Did they act like your blooming coquette.

7.

     No longer repine,
     Adopt this design, [v]
  And break through her slight-woven net! 
     Away with despair,
     No longer forbear
  To fly from the captious coquette.

8.

    Then quit her, my friend! 
    Your bosom defend,
  Ere quite with her snares you’re beset: 
    Lest your deep-wounded heart,
    When incens’d by the smart,
  Should lead you to curse the coquette.

October 27, 1806. [vi]

[Footnote 1:  The letters “C.  B. F. J. B. M.” are added, in a lady’s hand, in the annotated copy of ‘P. on V. Occasions’, p. 14 (British Museum).]

[Footnote i:  But believe me.

[Footnote ii:  But a partial.

[Footnote iii:  Nor seem.

[Footnote iv:  But if from false pride.

[Footnote v:  But form this design.

[Footnote vi:  BYRON, October 27, 1806. [4to]