Classic Poem

Women as women, me had never charmed,
And shafts that others felt left me unharmed.
But thou, Giraud, whose beauty would unlock
The gates of prejudice, and bid me mock
The sober fears that timid minds endure,
Whose ardent passions women only cure,
Receive this faithful tribute to thy charms,
Not vowed alone, but paid too in thy arms.
For here the wish, long cherished, long denied,
Within that monkish cell was gratified.
And as the sage, who dwelt on Leman's lake,
Nobly his inmost meditations spake,
Then dared the man, who would like him confess
His secret thoughts, to say his own were less;
So boldly I set calumny at naught,
And fearless utter what I fearless wrought.
For who that's shrived can say he never slipped?
Had conscience tongues what back would go unwhipped?
Is there an idiosyncracy prevails
In those whose predilection is for males?
And like the satirist, who gravely said,
“When wives are tiresome take a boy to bed.”