[Tea-Table Miscellany Contents]
FRom rosy bowers, where sleeps the god of love,
Hither, ye little waiting Cupids, fly;
Teach me, in soft melodious song, to move
With tender passion my heart’s darling joy:
Ah! let the soul of musick tune my voice,
To win dear Strephon, who my soul enjoys.
–
Or if more influencing
Is, to be brisk and airy,
With a step and a bound,
And a frisk from the ground,
I’ll trip like any fairy:
As once on Ida dancing,
Were three celestial bodies,
With an air and a face,
And a shape and a grace,
Let me charm like beauty’s goddess.
–
Ah! ah! ‘tis in vain, ‘tis all in vain,
Death and despair must end the fatal pain;
Cold despair, disguis’d like snow and rain,
Falls on my breast; black winds in tempests blow:
My veins all shiver, and my fingers glow;
My pulse beats a dead march for lost repose,
And to a solid lump of ice my poor fond heart is froze.
–
Or say, ye powers, my peace to crown,
Shall I thaw my self, or drown
Amongst the foaming billows,
Increasing all with tears I shed;
On beds of Ooze and christal pillows
Lay down my love sick head?
–
No, no, I’ll straight run mad,
That soon my heart will warm;
When once the sense is fled,
Love has no power to charm:
Wild thro’ the woods I’ll fly,
My robes and locks shall thus be tore;
A thousand thousand deaths I’ll die,
E’er thus in vain? e’er thus in vain adore.