BRIGHT and blooming as the spring,
Univerfal love infpiring;
All our fwains thy praifes fing,
Ever gazing and admiring.
With thy pleafing voice and fashion,
With thy humour and thy youth,
Chear my foul, and crown my paffion :
Oh! reward my love and truth.
With thy careful arts to cover
That which fools will count a fault,
Trucft friend as well as lover,
Oh! deferve fo kind a thought.
EACH APART FIRST, AND THEN BOTH TOGETHER.
Happy we shall lie poffeffing,
Folded in each other's arms.
Love and Nature's chiefeft bleffing
In the still increasing charms.
So the dearest joys of loving,
Which scarce heaven can go beyond, We'll be every day improving,
You more fair, and I more fond.
I more fair, and you more fond.
On One who died difcovering her Kindness.
O ME vex their fouls with jealous pain,
While others figh for cold difdain:
Love's various flaves we daily fee!
Yet happy all, compar'd with me.
Of all mankind, I lov'd the best
A nymph fo far above the reft,
That we outfhin'd the bleft above,
In beauty fhe, and I in love.
And therefore they who could not bear
To be outdone by mortals here,
Among themselves have plac'd her now,
And left me wretched here below.
All other fate I could have borne,
And ev'n endur'd her very scorn;
But oh! thus all at once to find
That dread account! both dead and kind!
What heart can hold if yet I live,
'Tis but to fhew how much I grieve.
ON LUCINDA'S DEATH.
COME all ye doleful, difmal cares,
That ever haunted guilty mind!
The pangs of love when it despairs,
And all those ftings the jealous find :
Alas! heart-breaking though ye be,
Yet welcome, welcome all to me!
Who now have loft--- but oh! how much?
No language, nothing can express,
Except my grief! for fhe was fuch,
That praises would but make her less.
Yet who can ever dare to raise
His voice on her, unless to praife?
Free from her fex's fmalleft faults,
And fair as womankind can be :
Tender and warm as lover's thoughts,
Yet cold to all the world but me.
Of all this nothing now remains,
But only fighs and endless pains!
LADY RETIRING INTO A MONASTERY,
WHAT breaft but yours can hold the double fire
Of fierce devotion, and of fond defire ?
Love would fhine forth, were not your zeal fo bright
Whofe glaring flames eclipfe his gentler light:
Lefs feems the faith that mountains can remove,
Than this which triumphs over youth and love.
But fhall fome threatening priest divide us two?
What worse than that could all his curfes do?
Thus with a fright fome have refign'd their breath,
And poorly dy'd, only for fear of death.
Heaven fees our,paffions with indulgence ftill,
And they who lov'd well, can do nothing ill.
While to us nothing but ourselves is dear,
Should the world frown, yet what have we to fear?
Fame, wealth, and power, those high-priz'd gifts of fate, The low concerns of a lefs happy state,
Are far be leath us: fortune's self may take
Her aim at us, yet no impreffion make;
E
Let worldlings afk her help, or fear her harms;
We can lie fafe, lock'd in each other's arms,
Like the bleft faints, eternal raptures know,
And flight thofe ftorms that vainly reft below.
Yet this, all this you are refolv'd to quit;
1 fee my ruin, and I must submit:
But think, O think, before you prove unkind,
How loft a wretch you leave forlorn behind.
Malignant envy, mix'd with hate and fear,
Revenge for wrongs too burdenfome to bear,
Ev'n zeal itself, from whence all mischiefs fpring,
Have never done fo barbarous a thing.
With fuch a fate the heavens decreed to vex
Armida once, though of the fairer fex ;
Rinaldo fhe had charm'd with fo much art,
Hers was his power, his perfon, and his heart:
Honour's high thoughts no more his mind could move;
She footh'd his rage, and turn'd it all to love:
When ftrait a guft of fierce devotion blows,
And in a moment all her joys o'erthrows:
The poor Armida tears her golden hair,
Matchlefs till now, for love or for despair.
Who is not mov'd while the fad nymph complains?
Yet you now act what Tafso only feigns:
And after all our vows, our fighs, our tears,
My banish'd forrows, and your conquer'd fears :
So many doubts, fo many dangers past,
Visions of zeal must vanquish me at last.
Thus, in great Homer's war, throughout the field Some hero ftill made all things mortal yield;
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