Ayres and Dialogues :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ayres and Dialogues

(To be Sung to the Theorbo-Lute or Base-Violl)

Gamble, John

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(11) Delay?

[I]

Delay? Alas there cannot be to Love a greater tyrannie: those cruel beauties that have slain
Their Votaries by their disdain,
Or studied torments sharp and witty,
Will be recorded for their pity,
And after-ages be misled
To think them blind, when this is spred.

II

Of deaths the speedyest is Despair,
Delays the slowest torments are:
Thy cruelty at once destoys
But expectation starves my joys:
Time and Delay, may bring me past
The power of Love to cure, at last;
And shouldst thou wish to ease my pain,
Thy pity might be lent in vain.

The Close.

Or if thou hast decreed that I
Must be beneath thy cruelty:
Oh kill me soon, thou wilt express
More mercy ev'n in shewing less.