 | Clarastella |  |
44
On the loss of Clarastella's black fan.
Tel me (fair wonder!) when the gentle airCourted your wanton hair,
And hov'ring 'bout your face did beg a kiss,
Proud of so great a bliss,
Why did your envious Fan to it denie
So chast a libertie?
Nor yet contented onely thus to do
Why did you hide it too?
Why did you blind those lamps which both adorn,
And can mislead the Morn?
Believe me 'twas unkindly done to skreen
That light was to be seen.
Though the bright lustre of your orient eies
Like the more pow'rful skies
Or dazles me or sets my heart on fire
When I so high aspire,
Your Bas'lisk look with its bewitching art
Though it strike dead my heart,
And I stand Planet-struck when e'r I view
So fair a star as you;
Yet do I languish like the drooping night
In absence of your light:
(For by your beams such warmth I do receive
By which alone I live)
That if you draw a cloud before this light,
'Tis with me darkest night.
VVhen Morpheus once had on my drowsie bed
His sable mantle spread
And drawn the curtains of Heav'ns Canopie,
Had veild the starry skie,
In this Cimmerian slumber as I lay,
Me thought I wisht for day,
45
Should the black earth adorn,
When with his early raies he should affright
The mistie shades of night,
At last he came, and I beheld his steeds
Deckt in their Royal weeds,
And fair Aurora purpling all the skie,
Enlightned ev'ry eie,
How glad was I? and wisht that never night
Might mask so great a light.
You were that Phospher I thus long'd to see
Hid in obscuritie;
And now your lustre breaks forth like the day
Clad in her best array.
Oh happy loss! by which I gain a sight
As precious as the light!
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