Originally Posted By: Mit
So... is it Lord Wharton's poem or Henry Woodfall's?
Personally, I'm doubtful of the attribution to Lord (Philip) Wharton (1613-1696) because I can't find any mention on the 'net of any other poems by him. It could well be that Lady Elizabeth Spence was simply retelling a tale invented by the sexton (with his "facetious humor" and "low cunning") as a kind of tourist attraction.

The majority of references on the 'net attribute the poem to Woodfall, though they are also uncertain. "Heroes and Heroines of Fiction" (Walsh - 1914) p. 113, states: "...hero and heroine of a ballad...attributed to Matthew Prior but probably antedates him. Another claimant has been put forward in the person of Henry Woodfall, the printer. According to Timberley, Woodfall was an apprentice of John Darby, a printer of Bartholomew Close, who died in 1730, and whose devotion to his wife Joan was notorious in the locality. This 'happy couple,' in their simple contentment and dislike for change, present some analogies to the Philemon and Baucis of classic myth."

Also, http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-dar1.htm states: "in the Literary Magazine in 1756, Samuel Johnson mentions a ballad about Darby and Joan. This is almost certainly the anonymous one that appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine in March 1735 [called 'The Joys of Love never forgot' - see below] ... This has usually been considered the source of the names, and various conjectures have been made, both as to the author, and as to the identity of 'Darby and Joan', but with no valid results... The DNB (Dictionary of National Biography) used to claim that Woodfall wrote the ballad to commemorate his late employer and his wife. However, the claim does not appear in the revised edition online and the connection seems not so clear-cut as once thought."

In any case, I did find a web site with the original Gentlemen's Magazine "Poetical Essay" for March 1735, entitled "The Joys of Love never forgot" (page 153).

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ilej/...5.3.x.5.x.x.153

It's clear some liberties were taken with the version printed in The Lily (1831), as the first four lines (below) are missing.

DEAR CHLOE ! while thus, beyond measure,
You treat me with doubts and disdain,
You rob all your Youth of its pleasure ;
And hoard up an Old Age of pain !

Your maxim, That Love 's only founded
On charms that will quickly decay !
You'll find to be very ill grounded;
When once you its dictates obey.

The Passion from beauty first drawn,
Your kindness would vastly improve !
Your sight and your smiles are the Dawn,
Possession's the Sunshine, of Love !

And though the bright beams of your eyes
Should be clouded, that now are so gay,
And darkness possess all the skies ;
Yet we ne'er shall forget it was Day.