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Poetical Exercises Written Upon Several Occasions

Presented and Dedicated to Her Royal Highness, Mary Princess of Orange [by John Cutts]

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DESPAIR.

A SONG, set by Mr. Abel, Servant to His MAJESTY.

O you immortal Powers of Love,
Why do you all my Hopes remove?
You give me up to certain Fate,
And force me to be desperate.

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Is it for this I've sacrific'd
My Quiet, and the World despis'd?
To burn, to bleed, to sigh, to groan,
To Love, be wretched, and undone?
When first you did my Soul inspire,
And I aproach'd your gentle Fire,
Was I unwilling to forego
My Ease, and be a Slave to you?
I hasten'd to the Myrtle Grove,
And there an Altar rais'd to Love;
On which my Heart still burning lies,
Inflam'd, at first, by Phillis's Eyes.
She pull'd it from my panting Breast,
And in a Veil of Crimson drest,

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'Twas on the fatal Altar laid,
By the too rash, unthinking Maid.
For, oh! I fear, she did prophane,
And take Love's sacred Name in vain;
For which unhappy Error, I,
By injur'd Love, am doom'd to dye.