Love
To Chloe, on a Charge of Inconstancy
From Poems, Chiefly Pastoral (1766)
How can Chloe think it strange,
Time should make a lover change?
Time brings all things to an end,
Courage can't the blow defend.
See the proud aspiring oak,
Falls beneath the fatal stroke:
If on Beauty's cheek he preys,
Straight the rosy bloom decays:
Joy puts out his lambent fires,
And at Time's approach—expires.
How can Chloe think it strange,
Time should make a lover change?
Codex Note
Text from the Eighteenth Century Collections Online / ECCO-TCP transcription (TCP K093533), Poems, Chiefly Pastoral (1766).
Cite this poem
MLA
Cunningham, John. “To Chloe, on a Charge of Inconstancy.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/cunningham_j/96/.
Chicago
Cunningham, John. “To Chloe, on a Charge of Inconstancy.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/cunningham_j/96/.
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