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 passage find,
Like that of light, to shine 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 chafte 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 faft the hand, but love the heart;
He the fool's god, thou nature's Hymen art;
Whofe laws once broke, we are not held by force,
But the falfe breach itself is a divorce.
For love the mifer will his gold despise,
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 substance hold,
Love ripens all that drofs into the pureft gold.
In heaven's great work thy part is fuch,
That mafter-like thou giv'st the last great touch.
To heaven's own mafter-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, reafon, 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 Reason turns to Love.
Thou reigneft o'er our earthly gods;
Uncrown'd by thee, their other crowns are loads ;
One beauty's fimile their meanest 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 bashful 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 conftant lover bleft,
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 flighted favours which cold nymphs difpenfe,
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 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.
'HOU lovely flave to a rude husband's will,
By Nature us'd fo well, by him fo ill!
For all that grief we fee your mind endure,
Your glafs prefents you with a pleafing cure.
Thofe maids you envy for their happier state,
To have your form, would gladly have
And of like flavery each wife complains,
Without fuch beauty's help to bear her chains.
Husbands like him we every-where may fee;
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 befide:
Thofe eyes, though weeping, can no pity move;
Worthy our grief! more worthy of our love!
You, while fo fair (do fortune what she please)
Unlefs, unfatisfied with all our vows,
Your vain ambition fo unbounded grows,
That you repine a husband fhould efcape
Th' united force of fuch a face and shape.
If fo, alas! for all thofe charming powers,
Your cafe is juft as defperate as ours.
Expect that birds fhould only fing to you,
And, as you walk, that ev'ry tree fhould 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 fenfible than these.
Then from fo dull a care your thoughts remove,
And waste not fighs you only owe to love.
'Tis pity, fighs from such a breast should part,
Unless to eafe fome doubtful lover's heart;
Who dies because he must too justly prize
What yet the dull poffeffor does despife.
Thus precious jewels among Indians grow,
Who nor their ufe, nor wondrous value know;
But we for those bright treasures tempt the main,
And hazard life for what the fools difdain.
A LETTER FROM SEA,
FAireft, if time and abfence can incline
Your heart to wandering thoughts no more than mine; Then fhall my hand, as changeless as my mind, From your glad eyes a kindly welcome find; Then, while this notes my conftancy affures, You'll be almost as pleas'd, as I with yours. And truft me, when I feel that kind relief, Abfence itself awhile fufpends its grief: So may it do with you, but ftrait return; For it were cruel not fometimes to mourn
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