SONGS.
HE bird, that hears her nestlings cry,
And flies abroad for food,
Returns, impatient, thro' the sky,
To nurse the callow brood,
The tender mother knows no joy,
But bodes a thousand harms,
And fickens for the darling boy,
While abfent from her arms.
Such fondness, with impatience join'd,
My faithful bofom fires;
Now forc'd to leave my fair behind,
The queen of my defires!
The powers of verfe too languid prove,
All fimilies are vain,
To fhew how ardently I love,
Or to relieve my pain.
The faint, with fervent zeal infpir'd
For heaven and joys divine,
The faint is not with raptures fir'd
More pure, more warm than mine?
I take what liberty I dare;
'Twere impious to fay more: Convey.my longings to the fair, The goddess, I adore.
'Twas fancy gave her fhape and air;
WAS fancy firft made Celia fair;
It robb'd the fun, ftript every ftar
Of beauties, to bestow on her;
And when it had the goddess made,
Down it fell, and worshipped.
Creator firft, and then a creature;
Narciffus, and a pail of water.
COLIN's Advice; or, DA MON to NISA.
HE Cupids had left all the lawns,
The fhepherds fell out about Pan ;
The noise had affrighted the fawns,
And all the kind wood-doves were gone
The reeds had forgot their sweet strains,
Nor murmur'd fo foft as before;
Difputes had diftracted the fwains,
And love was regarded no more.
Poor Damon might talk to the wind
His paffion for Nisa the fair;
And think, and think on, 'till he pin'd's
And figh 'till he vanish'd to air.
The fhepherds fad comforters prove,
Talk nought but of Pan, and the times;
Inhumanely banter his love,
And call it all whining, and rhimes.
To fhun all their jeers, and their strife,
He flies to a neighbouring cave,
To lament the hard fate of his life,
And hopes 'twill be shortly his grave.
Against the damp rock he reclin'd,
Like a languishing lover, his head:
My foul now unload thy whole mind;
Here none can upbraid thee, he said,
Whilft here he lamented alone:
Kind ecchoes repeated his grief,
In plaints full as foft as his own.
O! all ye foft powers above,
And muft I'be filent and die ?
Did Nifa but know how I love,
The charmer cou'd never deny.
Young Colin had skill to complain,
And mingle fuch art with his woe;
The nymphs were all touch'd with his pain,,
And tears from the Nereids flow.
But Damon, a plain-hearted fwain,
On mere fimple truth must rely:
But what can mere truth hope to gain
In a lover, fo artless as I?
What oceans of love thro' me roll!
Oh! 'tis not in words to impart
The billows, that hang on my foul;
The forrow that choaks up my heart.
Why, ye fates, was I deftin'd to bear
A forrow I cannot reveal?
Or kill me, or help me declare
To Nifa the paffion I feel.
Young Colin ftood listening near,
And thus he furprizes the youth;
If Nifa is human, she'll hear :
Ah! Damon, no language like truth;
Go tell her your own artless way ;
Great paffions can ne'er be expreft:
Simplicity still wins the day;
She knows how to guefs at the rest.
True love, in a foul that's fincere,
Is better than language, or art;.
Fine fimilies tickle the ear,
But nature will foften the heart.
I have writ to my fair,
But tremble to wait the reply:
Ah! Nifa, true lovers are rare;
May Damon be happy, or die.........
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