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122

MATTHEW PRIOR.

There needs, alas! but little art

To have this fatal secret found; With the same ease you threw the dart, 'Tis certain you can show the wound.

How can I see you, and not love,

While you as opening east are fair? While cold as northern blasts you prove, How can I love, and not despair?

The wretch, in double fetters bound,
Your potent mercy may release:
Soon, if my love but once were crown'd,
Fair Prophetess! my grief would cease.

SONG.

In vain you tell your parting Lover,
You wish fair winds may waft him over
Alas! what winds can happy prove,
That bear me far from what I love?
Alas! what dangers on the main
Can equal those that I sustain,
From slighted vows and cold disdain ?

Be gentle, and in pity choose
To wish the wildest tempest loose:
That, thrown again upon the coast

FRANCIS ATTERBURY.

Born 1662, died 1731-2.

ON A FAN.

Flavia the least and slightest toy
Can with resistless art employ!
This Fan in meaner hands would prove
An engine of small force in love:
Yet she with graceful air and mien,
Not to be told, or safely seen,
Directs its wanton motions so

That it wounds more than Cupid's bow;
Gives coolness to the machless dame,

To every other breast—a flame I

MATTHEW

PRIOR.

Born 1664, died 1721.

SONG.

While from our looks, fair nymph, you guess
The secret passions of the mind;

My heavy eyes, you say, confess
A heart to love and grief inclin❜d.

118

ANNE, MARCHIONESS OF WHARTON.

Then talk not of inconstancy,

False hearts and broken vows;

If I, by miracle, can be

This live-long minute true to thee,
'Tis all that heaven allows.

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How hardly I conceal'd my tears,
How oft did I complain,

When many tedious days my fears
Told me I lov'd in vain!

But now my joys as wild are grown,
And hard to be conceal'd;
Sorrow may make a silent moan,
But joy will be reveal'd.

I tell it to the bleating flocks,
To every stream and tree,

And bless the hollow-murmuring rocks

For echoing back to me.

Thus you may see with how much joy

We want, we wish, believe:

'Tis hard such passion to destroy
But easy to deceive!

Where first my shipwreck'd heart was lost,
I may once more repeat my pain;
Once more in dying notes complain
Of slighted vows, and cold disdain !

GEORGE

GRANVILLE

LORD LANSDOWNE.

Born 1667, died 1735.

TO MIRA.

No warning of th' approaching flame,
Swiftly, like sudden death, it came ;
Like travellers by lightning kill'd;
I burn'd the moment I beheld.

In whom so many charms are plac'd,
Is with a mind as nobly grac'd;
The case, so shining to behold,
Is fill'd with richest gems and gold.

To what my eyes admir'd before,
I add a thousand graces more ;
And fancy blows into a flame
The spark that from her beauty came.

The object thus improv'd by thought,
By my own image I am caught!
Pygmalion so, with fatal art,

Polish'd the form that stung his heart.

WILLIAM CONGREVE.

Born 1672, died 1728.

SONG.

See, see, she wakes, Sabrina wakes!
And now the sun begins to rise;
Less glorious is the morn that breaks
From his bright beams, than her fair eyes.

With light united, day they give;

But different fates ere night fulfil : How many by his warmth will live! How many will her coldness kill!

SONG.

Cruel Amynta can you see

A heart thus torn, which you betray'd? Love of himself ne'er vanquish'd me,

But through your eyes the conquest made.

In ambush there the traitor lay,

Where I was led by faithless smiles ;

No wretches are so lost as they

Whom much security beguiles!

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