'Love Song'

From a letter to Mrs David C. Colden (29 April 1842).

Dickens, Charles

The Charles Dickens Museum.

'To Mrs David C. Colden.' The Letters of Charles Dickens. The Pilgrim Edition. Edited by Madeline House, Graham Storey and Kathleen Tillotson. Volume 3 (1842-1843), p. 220. Oxford University Press, 1974.

Dickens, Charles. 'Love Song' (29 April 1842). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1842-04-29_Letter_To_Mrs_David_C_Colden_Love_Song.

Air – “London now is out of Town.”

Sweet Woman is of many kinds;
She sometimes is propi-tious;
She sometimes has a Thousand minds;
Sometimes is rather wi-cious.
Above her sex, my love doth shine,
Though by no means a bold ‘un
“I’d crowns resign, to call her mine”
– Her name is Missis ……

– Poor Frankenstein, that Prince of fools
Why grim male monster made he,
When with the self-same clay and tools
He might have built a Lady!
How wealthy in the Worlds effects,
If he had made and sold ‘un,
So wery prime in all respects
As charming Missis …… !

But vain reflection! who could rear,
On scaffold, pier, or starling,
A creetur half so bright or dear,
As my unmentioned Darling!
No artist in the World’s broad ways
Could ever carve or mould ‘un,
That might aspire to lace the stays
Of charming Mrs ……