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And that thou may'st behold my helpless state,
Learn the extremest rigour of my fate."

Amidst th' innumerable beauteous train,
Paris, the queen of cities è oes contain,
(The fairest town, the liest, and the best)
The fair Almeria shin'da ve the rest :
From her bright eyes to el a hopeless flame,
Was of our youth the most ambitious aim;
Her chains were marks of honour to the brave,
She made a prince whene'er she made a slave.
Love, under whose tyrannic power I groan,
Shew'd me this beauty ere 'twas fully blown ;
Her timorous charms, and her upractis'd look,
Their first assurance from my conquest took;
By wounding me, she learn'd the fatal art,
And the first sigh she had was from my heart;
My eyes, with tears moistening her snowy arms,
Render'd the tribute owing to her charms.
But, as I soonest of all mortals paid
My vows, and to her beauty altars made;
So, among all those slaves that sigh'd in vain,
She thought me only worthy of my chain:
Love's heavy burden my submissive heart
Endur'd not long, before she bore her part;
My violent flame melted her frozen breast,
And in soft sighs her pity she express'd;
Her gentle voice allay'd my raging pains,
And her fair hands sustain'd me in my chains;
Ev'n tears of pity waited on my moan,
And tender looks were cast on me alone.
My hopes and dangers were less mine than her's,
Those fill'd her soul with joys, and these with fears;
Our hearts, united, had the same desires,
And both alike burn'd with impatient fires.

Too faithful Memory! I give thee leave
Thy wretched master kindly to deceive;
Oh, make me not possessor of her charms,
Let me not find her languish in my arms!
Past joys are now my fancy's mournful theines;
Make all my happy nights appear but dreams:
Let not such bliss before my eyes be brought,
O hide those scenes from my tormenting thought;
And in their place disdainful beauty show;
If thou would'st not be cruel, make her so:
And, something to abate my deep despair,
O let her seem less gentle, or less fair!
But I in vain flatter my wounded mind;
Never was nymph so lovely or so kind:
No cold repulses my desire supprest,
I seldom sigh'd, but on Almeria's breast:
Of all the passions which mankind destroy,
I only felt excess of love and joy:

All things below, alas! uncertain stand;
The firmest rocks are fix'd upon the sand:
Under this law both kings and kingdoms bend,
And no beginning is without an end.
A sacrifice to Time, Fate dooms us all,
And at the tyrant's feet we daily fall:
Time, whose bold hand will bring alike to dust
Mankind, and temples too, in which they trust

Her wasted spirits now begin to faint,
Yet patience ties her tongue from all complaint,
And in her heart as in a fort remains ;
But yields at last to her resistless pains.
Thus while the Fever, amorous of his prey,
Through all her veins makes his delightful way,
Her fate's like Semele's; the flames destroy
That beauty they too eagerly enjoy.
Her charming face is in its spring decay'd,
Pale grow the roses, and the lilies fade;
Her skin has lost that lustre which surpass'd
The Sun's, and well deserv'd as long to last:
Her eyes, which us'd to pierce the hardest hearts,
Are now disarm'd of all their flames and darts;
Those stars now heavily and slowly move;
And Sickness triumphs in the throne of Love.
The fever every moment more prevails,
Its rage her body feels, and tongue bewails:
She, whose disdain so many lovers prove,
Sighs now for torment, as they sigh for love,
And with loud cries, which rend the neighbouring
air,

Wounds my sad heart, and weakens my despair.
Both men and gods I charge now with my loss,
And, wild with grief, my thoughts each other cross,
My heart and tongue labour in both extremes,
This sends up humble prayers, while that blas-
phemes:

I ask their help, whose malice I defy,
And mingle sacrilege with piety.

But, that which must yet more perplex my mind,
To love her truly, I must seem unkind;
So unconcern'd a face my sorrow wears,

I must restrain unruly floods of tears.

My eyes and tongue put on dissembling forms,
I show a calmness in the midst of storms;

I seem to hope when all my hopes are gone,
And, almost dead with grief, discover none.
But who can long deceive a loving eye,
Or with dry eyes behold his mistress die ;
When passion had with all its terrours brought
Th' approaching danger nearer to my thought,
Off on a sudden fell the forc'd disguise,
And show'd a sighing heart in weeping eyes:

Unnumber'd pleasures charm'd my sense, and they My apprehensions, now no more confin'd,

Were, as my love, without the least allay,
As pure, alas! but not so sure, to last,
For, like a pleasing dream, they are all past.
From Heaven her beauties like fierce lightnings

came,

Which break through darkness with a glorious
flame;

Awhile they shine, awhile our minds amaze
Our wondering eyes are dazzled with the blaze;
But thunder follows, whose resistless rage
None can withstand, and nothing can assuage;
And all that light which those bright flashes gave,
Serves only to conduct us to our grave.

When I had just begun love's joys to taste,
(Those full rewards for fears and dangers past)
A fever seiz'd her, and to nothing brought
The richest work that ever Nature wrought.

Expos'd my sorrows, and betray'd my mind.
The fair afflicted soon perceives my tears,
Explains my sighs, and thence concludes my fears:
With sad presages of her hopeless case,
She reads her fate in my dejected face;
Then feels my torment, and neglects her own,
While I am sensible of hers alone;

Each does the other's burthen kindly bear,
I fear her death, and she bewails my fear;
Though thus we suffer under Fortune's darts,
"Tis only those of Love which reach our hearts.

Mean while the fever mocks at all our fears,
Grows by our sighs, and rages at our tears:
Those vain effects of our as vain desire,
Like wind and oil, increase the fatal fire.
Almeria then, feeling the destinies
About to shut her lips, and close her eyes!

Weeping, in mine, fix'd her fair trèmbling hand,
And with these words I scarce could understand,
Her passion in a dying voice express'd
Half, and her sighs, alas! made out the rest.
"Tis past; this pang-Nature gives o'er the
strife;

Thou must thy mistress lose, and I my life.
I die; but dying thine, the Fates may prove
Their conquest over me, but not my love:
Thy memory, my glory and my pain,
In spite of Death itself shall still remain.
Dearest Orontes, my hard fate denies,

That hope is the last thing which in us dies: [fled,
From my griev'd breast all those soft thoughts are
And love survives it, though my hope is dead;
I yield my life, but keep my passion yet,
And can all thoughts, but of Orontes, quit.

"My flame increases as my strength decays; Death, which puts out the light, the heat will raise :

That still remains, though I from hence remove; I lose my lover, but I keep my love."

[word,

The sighs which sent forth that last tender Up tow❜rds the Heavens like a bright meteor soar'd; And the kind nymph, not yet bereft of charms, Fell cold and breathless in her lover's arms.

Goddess, who now my fate hast understood,
Spare but my tears, and freely take my blood:
Here let me end the story of my cares;
My dismal grief enough the rest declares.
Judge thou, by all this misery display'd,
Whether I ought not to implore thy aid:
Thus to survive, reproaches on me draws;
Never sad wishes had so just a cause.

Come then, my only hope; in every place
Thou visitest, men tremble at thy face,
And fear thy name: once let thy fatal hand
Fall on a swain that does the blow demand.
Vouchsafe thy dart; I need not one of those,
With which thou dost unwilling kings depose:
A welcome death the slightest wound can bring,
And free a Soul already on her wing.
Without thy aid, most miserable I
Must ever wish, yet not obtain to die.

ODE ON LOVE.

LET others songs or satires write,
Provok'd by vanity or spite;
My Muse a nobler cause shall move,
To sound aloud the praise of Love:

That gentle, yet resistless heat,

Which raises men to all things good and great:
While other passions of the mind
To low brutality debase mankind,
By Love we are above ourselves refin'd.

Oh, Love, thou trance divine! in which the Soul,
Unclogg'd with worldly cares, may range without
control;
[can teach
And, soaring to her Heaven, from thence inspir'd
High mysteries, above poor Reason's feeble reach.
To weak old age, Prudence some aid may prove,
And curb those appetites that faintly move;
But sild, impetuous youth, is tam'd by nothing
less than Love.

Of men too rough for peace, too rude for arts,
Love's power can penetrate the hardest hearts;

VOL X.

And through the closest pores a passage find,
Like that of light, to shine o'er all the mind.
The want of love does both extremes produce;
Maids are too nice, and men as much too loose;
While equal good an amorous couple find,
She makes him constant, and he makes her kind.
New charms in vain a lover's faith would prove;
Hermits or bed-rid men they'll sooner move:
The fair inveigler will but sadly find

There's no such eunuch as a man in love.
But when by his chaste nymph embrac'd,
(For Love makes all embraces chaste)
Then the transported creature can

Do wonders, and is more than man.
Both Heaven and Earth would our desires confine;
But yet in vain both Heaven and Earth combine,
Unless where Love blesses the great design.
Hymen makes fast the band, but Love the heart;
He the fool's god, thou Nature's Hymen art;
Whose laws, once broke, we are not held by force,
But the false breach itself is a divorce.
For Love the miser will his gold despise,
The false grow faithful, and the foolish wise;
Cautious the young, and complaisant the old,
The cruel gentle, and the coward bold.
Thou glorious Sun within our souls,
Whose influence so much controls;
Ev'n dull and heavy lumps of Love,
Quicken'd by thee, more lively move;
And, if their heads but any substance hold,
Love ripens all that dross into the purest gold.

In Heaven's great work thy part is such, That, master-like, thou giv'st the last great touch To Heaven's own master-piece of man; And finishest what Nature but began: Thy happy stroke can into softness bring Reason, that rough and wrangling thing. From childhood upwards we decay, And grow but greater children every day: To Reason, how can we be said to rise? So many cares attend the being wise, 'Tis rather falling down a precipice. From Sense to Reason unimprov'd we move; We only then advance, when Reason turns to Love.

Thou reignest o'er our earthly gods;

Uncrown'd by thee, their other crowns are loads;
One Beauty's smile their meanest courtier brings
Rather to pity than to envy kings;

His fellow slaves he takes them now to be,
Favour'd by Love, perhaps, much less than he.
For Love, the timorous bashful maid

Of nothing but denying is afraid;

For Love she overcomes her shame,

Forsakes her fortune, and forgets her fame;
Yet, if but with a constant lover blest,
Thanks Heaven for that, and never minds the rest.

Love is the salt of life; a higher taste
It gives to pleasure, and then makes it last.
Those slighted favours which cold nymphs dispense
Mere common counters of the sense,
Defective both in metal and in measure,
A lover's fancy coins into a treasure.
How vast the subject! what a boundless store
Of bright ideas, shining all before!
The Muse's sighs forbid me to give o'er!
But the kind god incites us various ways,
And now I find him all my ardour raise,
His precepts to perform, as well as praise

6

ELEGY TO THE DUTCHESS OF R.

THOU lovely slave to a rude husband's will,
By Nature us'd so well, by him so ill!
For all that grief we see your mind endure,
Your glass presents you with a pleasing cure.
Those maids you envy for their happier state,
To have your form, would gladly have your fate;
And of like slavery each wife complains,
Without such beauty's help to bear her chains.
Husbands like him we every where may see;
But where can we behold a wife like thee?

While to a tyrant you by Fate are ty'd,
By Love you tyrannize o'er all beside:
Those eyes, though weeping, can no pity move;
Worthy our grief! more worthy of our love!
You, while so fair (do Fortune what she please)
Can be no more in pain than we at ease;
Unless, unsatisfied with all our vows,
Your vain ambition so unbounded grows,
That you repine a husband should escape
Th' united force of such a face and shape.
If so, alas! for all those charming powers,
Your case is just as desperate as ours.
Expect that birds should only sing to you,
And, as you walk, that ev'ry tree should bow;
Expect those statues, as you pass, should burn;
And that with wonder men should statues turn;
Such beauty is enough to give things life,
But not to make a husband love his wife:
A husband, worse than statues, or than trees;
Colder than those, less sensible than these.
Then from so dull a care your thoughts remove,
And waste not sighs you only owe to Love.
'Tis pity, sighs from such a breast should part,
Unless to ease some doubtful lover's heart;
Who dies, because he must too justly prize
What yet the dull possessor does despise.
Thus precious jewels among Indians grow,
Who nor their use, nor wondrous value, know;
But we, for those bright treasures, tempt the main,
And hazard life for what the fools disdain.

A LETTER FROM SEA.

FAIREST, if time and absence can incline

Your heart to wandering thoughts no more than mine;

Then shall my hand, as changeless as my mind,
From your glad eyes a kindly welcome find;
Then, while this note my constancy assures,
You'll be almost as pleas'd, as I with yours.
And trust me, when I feel that kind relief,
Absence itself awile suspends its grief:
So may it do with you, but strait return;
For it were cruel not sometimes to mourn
His fate, who, this long time he keeps away,
Mourns all the night, and sighs out all the day;
Grieving yet more, when he reflects, that you
Must not be happy, or must not be true.
But since to me it seems a blacker fate
To be inconstant, than unfortunate;
Remember all those vows between us past,
When I from all I value parted last;
May you alike with kind impatience burn;
And somethink miss, till I with joy return;
And soon may pitying Heaven that blessing give,
As in the hopes of that alone I live.

LOVE'S SLAVERY,

GRAVE fops my envy now beget,

Who did my pity move; They, by the right of wanting wit, Are free from cares of love.

Turks honour fools, because they are,
By that defect, secure
From slavery and toils of war,
Which all the rest endure.

So I, who suffer cold neglect
And wounds from Celia's eyes,
Begin extremely to respect

These fools, that seem so wise.

'Tis true, they fondly set their hearts On things of no delight;

To pass all day for men of parts,

They pass alone the night.

But Celia never breaks their rest;
Such servants she disdains;
And so the fops are duly blest,
While I endure her chains.

THE DREAM,

READY to throw me at the feet

Of that fair nymph whom I adore, Impatient those delights to meet

Which I enjoy'd the night before;

By her wonted scornful brow,

Soon the fond mistake I find; Ixion mourn'd his errour so,

When Juno's form the cloud resign'd,

Sleep, to make its charms more priz'd Than waking joys, which most prevail, Had cunningly itself disguis'd

In a shape that could not fail,

There my Celia's snowy arms,

Breasts, and other parts more dear,
Exposing new and unknown charms,
To my transported soul appear.

Then you so much kindness show,

My despair deluded flies;
And indulgent dreams bestow
What your cruelty denies.

Blush not that your image Love
Naked to my fancy brought;
'Tis hard, methinks, to disapprove
The joys I feel without your fault.

Wonder not a fancy'd bliss

Can such griefs as mine remove; That honour as fantastic is,

Which makes you slight such constant love,

The virtue which you value so,
Is but a fancy frail and vain;
Nothing solid here below,
Except my love and your disdain

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Nor give so hard, unjust a name

To all those favours he implores,

A heart by kindness only gain'd,

Will a dear conquest prove; And, to be kept, must be maintain'd At vast expense of love.

THE VENTURE.

Beauty is Heaven's most bounteous gift esteem'd, OH, how I languish! what a strange Because by love men are from vice redeem'd.

Yet wish not vainly for a love

From all the force of nature clear;

That is reserv'd for those above,

And 'tis a fault to claim it here.

For sensual joys ye scorn that we should love ye, But love, without them, is as much above ye,

THE WARNING.

LOVERS, who waste your thoughts and youth
In passion's fond extremes,

Who dream of women's love and truth,
And doat upon your dreams:

I should not here your fancy take
From such a pleasing state,

Were you not sure at last to wake,
And find your fault too late.

Then learn, betimes, the love which crowns
Our cares is all but wiles,
Compos'd of false fantastic frowns,
And soft dissembling smiles.

With anger, which sometimes they feign,
They cruel tyrants prove;
And then turn flatterers again,
With as affected love.

As if some injury was meant
To those they kindly us'd,
Those lovers are the most content
That have been still refus'd.
Since each has in his bosom nurst
A false and fawning foe,
Tis just and wise, by striking first,
To 'scape the fatal blow.

TO AMORETTA.

WHEN I held out against your eyes
You took the surest course

A heart unwary to surprise,

You ne'er could take by force,
However, though I strive no more,
The fort will now be priz'd,
Which, if surrender'd up before,
Perhaps had been despis'd.

But, gentle Amoretta, though
I cannot love resist,

Think not, when you have caught me so,
To use me as you list.

Inconstancy or coldness will

My foolish heart reclaim:

Then I come off with honour still,
But you, alas! with shame.

Unruly fierce desire!

My spirits feel some wondrous change,
My heart is all on fire,

Now, all ye wiser thoughts, away,
In vain your tale ye tell

Of patient hopes, and dull delay,
Love's foppish part; farewell.
Suppose one week's delay would give
All that my wishes move;
Who, who so long a time can live,
Stretch'd on the rack of Love?

Her soul, perhaps, is too sublime,
To like such slavish fear;
Discretion, prudence, all is crime,
If once condemn'd by her.
When honour does the soldier call
To some unequal fight,
Resolv'd to conquer, or to fall,
Before his general's sight;
Advanc'd the happy hero lives;
Or, if ill Fate denies,

The noble rashness Heaven forgives,
And gloriously he dies.

I

INCONSTANCY EXCUSED.

SONG.

MUST Confess, I am untrue

To Gloriana's eyes;

But he that's smil'd upon by you,
Must all the world despise.

In winter, fires of little worth

Excite our dull desire;

But when the Sun breaks kindly forth, Those fainter flames expire.

Then blame me not for slighting now
What I did once adore;

O, do but this one change allow,
And I can change no more:

Fixt by your never-failing charms,
Till I with age decay,

Till languishing within your arins,
I sigh my soul away.

SONG.

OH, conceal that charming creature From my wondering, wishing eyes! Every motion, every feature,

Does some ravish'd heart surprise; But, oh! I sighing, sighing, see The happy swain! she ne'er can be False to him, or kind to me.

Yet, if I could humbly show her,
Ah how wretched I remain;
'Tis not, sure a thing below her,

Still to pity so much pain.

The gods some pleasure, pleasure take,
Happy as themselves to make
Those who suffer for their sake.

Since your hand alone was given

To a wretch not worth your care;
Like some angel sent from Heaven,

Come, and raise me from despair.
Your heart I cannot, cannot miss,
And I desire no other bliss;
Let all the world besides be his.

DESPAIR.

ALL hopeless of relief,
Incapable of rest,

In vain I strive to vent a grief
That's not to be exprest.

This rage within my veins

No reason can remove;

Of all the mind's most cruel pains,
The sharpest, sure, is love.

Yet while I languish so,

And on thee vainly call; Take heed, fair cause of all my woe, What fate may thee befall. Ungrateful, cruel faults

Suit not thy gentle sex; Hereafter, how will guilty thoughts Thy tender conscience vex!

When welcome Death shall bring
Relief to wretched me,

My soul enlarg'd, and once on wing,
In haste will fly to thee.
When in thy lonely bed

My ghost its moan shall make,
With saddest signs that I am dead,
And dead for thy dear sake;
Struck with that conscious blow,
Thy very soul will start:
Pale as my shadow thou wilt grow,
And cold as is thy heart.
Too late remorse will then
Untimely pity show

To him, who, of all mortal men,
Did most thy value know.
Yet, with this broken heart,

I wish thou never be

Tormented with the thousandth part Of what I feel for thee.

ON APPREHENSION OF LOSING

WHAT HE HAD NEWLY GAINED.

IN IMITATION OF OVID.

SURE I of all men am the first

Had I at distance only seen
That lovely face, I might have been
With the delightful object pleas'd,
But not with all this passion seiz'd.

When afterwards so near I came
As to be scorch'd in Beauty's flame;'
To so much softness, so much sense,
Reason itself made no defence.

What pleasing thoughts possess'd my mind,
When little favours show'd you kind!
And though, when coldness oft prevail'd,
My heart would sink, and spirits fail'd,
Yet willingly the yoke I bore,

And all your chains as bracelets wore:
At your lov'd feet all day would lie,
Desiring, without knowing why;
For, not yet blest within your arms,
Who could have thought of half your charms?
Charms of such a wondrous kind,
Words we cannot, must not find,
A body worthy of your mind.
Fancy could ne'er so high reflect,
Nor love itself such joys expect.
After such embraces past,
Whose memory will ever last,
Love is still reflecting back;
All my soul is on a rack :

To be in Hell's sufficient curse,
But to fall from Heaven is worse.
I liv'd in grief ere this I knew,
But then I dwelt in darkness too.
Of gains alas! I could not boast;
But little thought how much I lost.

Now heart-devouring eagerness,
And sharp impatience to possess;
Now restless cares, consuming fires,
Anxious thoughts, and fierce desires,
Tear my heart to that degree,
For ever fix'd on only thee:
Then all my comfort is, I shall
Live in thy arms, or not at all.

THE RECONCILEMENT,

SONG.

COME, let us now resolve at last

To live and love in quiet;
We'll tie the knot so very fast,

That Time shall ne'er untie it.
The truest joys they seldom prove,
Who free from quarrels live;
'Tis the most tender part of love,
Each other to forgive.

When least I seem'd concern'd, I took
No pleasure, nor no rest;
And when I feign'd an angry look,
Alas! I loy'd you best.

Own but the same to me, you'll find
How blest will be our fate;
Oh, to be happy, to be kind,
Sure never is too late.

SONG.

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FROM all uneasy passions free,

Revenge, ambition, jealousy,

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