In honor of Presidents’ Day, here is a love poem supposedly penned by a teenage George Washington:
Oh Ye Gods
Oh Ye Gods why should my Poor Resistless Heart
Stand to oppose thy might and Power
At Last surrender to cupids feather’d Dart
And now lays Bleeding every Hour
For her that’s Pityless of my grief and Woes
And will not on me Pity take
Ill sleep amongst my most Inviterate Foes
And with gladness never with to Wake
In deluding sleepings let my Eyelids close
That in an enraptured Dream I may
In a soft lulling sleep and gentle repose
Possess those joys denied by Day.
– George Washington
Published by Paul Szlosek
Paul Szlosek was born in Southbridge, Massachusetts, but currently resides in the nearby metropolis of Worcester. He was co-founder and host of the long-running Poet’s Parlor poetry reading in Southbridge and Sturbridge, as well as a past recipient of the Jacob Knight Award for Poetry. His poems have appeared in various local publications including the Worcester Review, Worcester Magazine, Sahara, Concrete Wolf, and Diner. He’s probably best known in the Worcester poetry community for his fanatical obsession with obscure poetry forms, and has invented his own including the ziggurat, the streetbeatina, and (most recently) the hodgenelle.
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Great poem. I like the duality illusion-dellusion, dream-sad reality as expressed with the contrast night-day, where the first is the moment when we have our dreams and illusions before a fatal awakening with the new day comes.
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Yes, I agree. I think it is absolutely astonishing what a fine poet that George Washington was as a teenager. That is if he actually wrote this poem. There are some historians, in spite of this poem being found among his writings, believe he actually copied it from an unknown volume of poetry.
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