But would you meanly thus rely
On power, you know, I must obey?
Exert a legal tyranny ;
And do an ill, because you may?
Still muft I thee, as atheists heaven, adore;
Not fee thy mercy, and yet dread thy power?
Take heed, my dear: youth flies apace ;
As well as Cupid, Time is blind :
Soon must those glories of thy face
The fate of vulgar beauty find :
The thousand Loves, that arm thy potent eye,
Muft drop their quivers, flag their wings, and die,
Then wilt thou figh, when in each frown
A hateful wrinkle more appears ;
And putting peevish humours on,
Seems but the fad effect of years:
Kindness itself too weak a charm will prove,
To raise the feeble fires of aged love.
Forc'd compliments, and formal bows,
Will shew thee just above neglect :
The heat with which thy lover glows,
Will fettle into cold respect :
A talking dull platonic I shall turn :
Learn to be civil, when I cease to burn,
Then fhun the ill, and know, my dear,
Kindness and conftancy will prove
The only pillars, fit to bear
So vaft a weight as that of love.
If thou canft wifh to make my flames endure,
Thine must be very fierce, and very pure.
Hafte, Celia, hafte, while youth invites,
Obey kind Cupid's prefent voice;
Fill every sense with soft delights,
And give thy foul a loose to joys:
Let millions of repeated bliffes prove,
"That thou all kindness art, and I all love.
Be mine, and only mine; take care
Thy looks, thy thoughts, thy dreams, to guide To me alone; nor come fo far,
As liking any youth beside :
What men e'er court thee, fly them, and believe
They're ferpents all, and thou the tempted Eve.
So fhall I court thy dearest truth,
When beauty ceases to engage ;
So, thinking on thy charming youth,
I'll love it o'er again in age:
So Time itfelf our raptures fhall improve,
While ftill we wake to joy, and live to love.
An EPISTLE to FLEETWOOD SHEPHARD, Efq.
HEN crowding folks, with ftrange ill faces, Were making legs, and begging places, And fome with patents, fome with merit, Tir'd out my good lord Dorfet's fpirit: Sneaking I ftood amongst the crew, Defiring much to speak with you. I waited while the clock ftruck thrice, And footman brought out fifty lies
Till, patience vext, and legs grown weary,
I thought it was in vain to tarry:
But did opine it might be better,
By penny-poft to send a letter;
Now, if you mifs of this epiftle,
I'm baulk'd again, and may go whistle.
My business, Sir, you'll quickly guefs,
Is to defire fome little place;
And fair pretenfions I have for 't,
Much need, and very fmall defert.
Whene'er I writ to you, I wanted;
I always begg'd, you always granted.
Now, as you took me up when little,
Gave me my learning and my vittle;
Afk'd for me, from my lord, things fitting,
Kind as I 'ad been your own begetting;
Confirm what formerly you've given,
Nor leave me now at fix and feven,
As Sunderland has left Mun Stephen.
No family, that takes a whelp
When first he laps and scarce can yelp,
Neglects or turns him out of gate
When he's grown up to dog's eftate:
Nor parish, if they once adopt
The spurious brats by ftrolers dropt,
Leave them, when grown up lufty fellows,
To the wide world, that is, the gallows :
No, thank them for their love, that 's worse,
Than if they 'ad throttled them at nurse.
My uncle, reft his foul! when living,
Might have contriv'd me ways of thriving;
Taught me with cyder to replenish
My vats, or ebbing tide of rhenish.
So when for hock I drew prickt white-wine,
Swear 't had the flavour, and was right wine.
Or fent me with ten pounds to Furni-
val's inn, to fome good rogue-attorney;
Where now, by forging deeds, and cheating,
I 'ad found fome handsome ways of getting.
All this you made me quit, to follow
That fneaking whey-fac'd god Apollo;
Sent me ainong a fiddling crew
Of folks, I'ad never seen nor knew,
Calliope, and God knows who.
To add no more invectives to it,
You spoil'd the youth, to make a poet.
In common juftice, Sir, there's no man
That makes the whore, but keeps the woman.
Among all honeft christian people,
Whoe'er breaks limbs, maintains the cripple.
The fum of all I have to fay,
Is, that you'd put me in some way;
And your petitioner fhall pray.
There's one thing more I had almost flipt,
But that may do as well in post-script:
My friend Charles Montague's preferr'd;
Nor would I have it long obferv'd,
That one moufe eats, while t'other 's starv'd.
Another EPISTLE to the fame.
AS once a twelvemonth to the priest,
Holy at Rome, here antichrift,
The Spanish king presents a jennet,
To fhew his love that 's all that's in it:
For if his holiness would thump
His reverend bum 'gainst horfe's rump,
He might b' equipt from his own stable
With one more white, and eke more able.
Or as, with gondolas and men, his
Good excellence the duke of Venice
(I wish, for rhyme, 't had been the king)
Sails out, and gives the gulph a ring;
Which trick of ftate, he wifely maintains,
Keeps kindness up 'twixt old acquaintance
For elfe, in honeft truth, the fea
Has much less need of gold than he.
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