Here let me end the ftory of my cares;
My difmal grief enough the reft declares.
Judge thou by all this mifery difplay'd,
Whether I ought not to implore thy aid:
Thus to furvive, reproaches on me draws;
Never fad wishes had fo just a caufe.

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 depofe :
A welcome death the flightest wound can bring,
And free a foul already on her wing.
Without thy aid, most miserable I
Muft ever wish, yet not obtain to die.

O DE ON

LOVE.

L

I.

ET others fongs or fatires write,
Provok'd by Vanity or Spite;

My Mufe a nobler cause shall move,

To found aloud the praise of Love:
That gentle, yet refiftlefs 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

Oh love, thou trance divine! in which
Unclogg'd with wordly cares, may range
And foaring to her heaven, from thence i...
High mysteries, above poor Reason's feeble reach.

II.

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 loofe;
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 fooner 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 chafte)
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;

C 3

}

Whofe

Whofe laws once broke, we are not held by force,
But the falfe breach itself is a divorce.

III.

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,
Whose 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 dross into the purest gold.
In heaven's great work thy part is such,
That master-like thou giv'ft the last great touch.
To heaven's own mafter-piece of man ;
And finishest what Nature but began:
Thy happy ftroke can into softness bring
Reason, 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 Reason unimprov'd we move ;
We only then advance, when Reafon turns to Love.

IV.

Thou reigneft o'er our earthly gods;

Uncrown'd by thee, their other crowns are loads;

}

One

One beauty's smile 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 fhe overcomes her fhame,
Forfakes her fortune, and forgets her fame
Yet, if but with a conftant lover bleit,

Thanks heaven for that, and never minds the reft.
V.

Love is the falt of life; a higher taste
It gives to pleasure, and then makes it last.
Those 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 vaft the fubject! what a boundless store
Of bright ideas, fhining 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.

ELEGY

E L E G Y

TO THЕ

DUTCHESS

TH

OF RE

'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 glass prefents you with a pleasing cure.
Thofe maids you envy for their happier state,
To have your form, would gladly have your fate;
And of like flavery each wife complains,
Without fuch 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 befide :

Thofe eyes, though weeping, can no pity move;
Worthy our grief! more worthy of our love!
You, while fo fair (do fortune what the please)
Unlefs, unfatisfied with all our vows,
Your vain ambition fo unbounded grows,
That you repine a husband should escape
Th' united force of fuch a face and shape.
If fo, alas! for all thofe charming powers,
Your cafe is just as desperate as ours.
Expect that birds fhould only fing to you,

And, as you walk, that ev'ry tree should bow;