Here let me end the ftory 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 furvive, reproaches on me draws
Never fad wishes had so just a cause.
Come then, my only hope; in every place
Thou vifiteft, men tremble at thy face,
And fear thy name: once let thy fatal hand
Fall on a fwain that does the blow demand.
Vouchsafe thy dart; I need not one of those,
With which thou doft unwilling kings depose:
A welcome death the flightest wound can bring,
And free a foul already on her wing.
Without thy aid, moft miferable I
Muft ever wish, yet not obtain to die.
ET others fongs or fatires write,
Provok'd by Vanity or Spite;
My Mufe a nobler cause shall move,
To found aloud the praife of Love:
That gentle, yet refiftless heat,
Which raises men to all things good and great:
While other paffions of the mind
To low brutality debafe mankind,
By love we are above ourselves refin'd.
Oh love, thou trance divine! in which the foul, Unclogg'd with wordly cares, may range without control; And foaring to her heaven, from thence infpir'd can teach High mysteries, above poor Reason's feeble reach.
To weak old age, Prudence fome aid may prove
And curb thofe appetites that faintly move;
But wild, impetuous youth is tam'd by nothing lefs
than love.
Of men too rough for peace, too rude for arts,
Love's power can penetrate the hardest hearts;
And through the closest pores a paffage find,
Like that of light, to fhine all o'er 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 conftant, 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 fadly find,
There's no fuch eunuch as a man in love.
But when by his chaste nymph embrac'd,'
(For love makes all embraces chaste)
Then the tranfported creature can
Do wonders, and is more than man.
Both heaven and earth would our defires confine;
But yet in vain both heaven and earth combine,
Unless where love bleffes the great defign.
Hymen makes fast the hand, 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 falfe breach itself is a divorce.
For love the mifer will his gold defpife,
The falfe grow faithful, and the foolish wife;
Cautious the young, and complaifant the old,
The cruel gentle, and the coward bold.
Thou glorious fun within our fouls,
Whofe influence fo much controls;
Ev'n dull and heavy lumps of love,
Quicken'd by thee, more lively move;
And if their heads but any fubftance hold,
Love ripens all that drofs into the pureft gold.
In heaven's great work thy part is such,
That mafter-like thou giv'st the last great
To heaven's own master-piece of man;
And finisheft what Nature but began:
Thy happy ftroke can into softness bring
Reafon, that rough and wrangling thing.
From childhood upwards we decay,
And grow but greater children every day :
So, reason, how can we be faid to rife?
So many cares attend the being wife,
'Tis rather falling down a precipice.
From Senfe to Reafon unimprov'd we move;
We only then advance, when Reafon turns to Love.
Thou reigneft o'er our earthly gods;
Uncrown'd by thee, their other crowns are loads ;
One beauty's fmile their meaneft courtier brings
Rather to pity than to envy kings;
His fellow flaves he takes them now to be,
Favour'd by love perhaps much less than he.
For love, the timorous bafhful maid,
Of nothing but denying is afraid;
For love the overcomes her fhame,
Forfakes her fortune, and forgets her fame;
Yet, if but with a constant lover bleit,
Thanks heaven for that, and never minds the rest.
V.
Love is the falt of life; a higher taste
It gives to pleasure, and then makes it last.
Thofe lighted favours which cold nymphs difpenfe,
Mere common counters of the fenfe,
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 Mufes' fighs, forbids 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.
His fate, who this long time he keeps away,
Mourns all the night, and fighs out all the day;
Grieving yet more, when he reflects that you
Muft not be happy, or muft not be true.
But fince to me it seems a blacker fate
To be inconftant, than unfortunate;
Remember all thofe vows between us past,
When I from all I value parted laft ;
alike with kind impatience burn, And fomething mifs, till I with joy return; And foon may pitying heaven that bleffing give, As in the hopes of that alone I live.
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 fecure
From flavery and toils of war,
Which all the reft endure.
So I, who fuffer cold neglect,
And wounds from Celia's eyes,
Begin extremely to refpect
Thefe fools that seem fo wife.
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