[Tea-Table Miscellany Contents]
To the Tune of, The yellow-hair’d Laddie.
–
YE shepherds and nymphs that adorn the gay plain,
Approach from your sports and attend to my strain;
Amongst all your number a lover so true,
Was ne’er so undone, with such bless in his view.
–
Was ever a nymph so hard-hearted as mine?
She knows me sincere, and she sees how I pine,
She does not disdain me, nor frown in her wrath,
But calmly and mildly resigns me to death.
–
She calls me her friend, but her lover denies:
She smiles when I’m chearful, but hears not my sighs
A bosom so flinty, so gentle an air,
Inspires me with hope, and yet bids me despair!
–
I fall at her feet, and implore her with tears:
Her answer confounds, while her manner endears,
When softly she tells me to hope no relief,
My trembling lips bless her in spite of my grief.
–
By night, while I slumber, still haunted with care,
I start up in anguish, and sigh for the fair:
The fair sleeps in peace, may she ever do so
And only when dreaming imagine my wo.
–
Then gaze at a distance, nor farther aspire,
Nor thinks he shou’d love, whom she cannot admire:
Hush all thy complaining, and dying her slave,
Commend her to heaven, and thy self to the grave.
– Authors Unknown.