Banishing love, you now proclaim us friends—

Yes, steadfast friends to stand forever more,

Where words and smiles replace once soft held hands,

Love-laden eyes, all passion to abhor.

No lips to kiss, no arms of sweet embrace;

No soft caresses ‘neath a fawning moon,

Forever bound to keep a public face;

No furtive touches in the drawing room.

Such concord is, for love, a poor excuse—

A purgatory, or a kinder hell:

What sin of sins could cause such fall from grace

And for this pretense, what might hearts compel?

Ordain in friendship that which once was love—

Does rapture rare unto the common move.