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The poetical works of Susanna Blamire "The Muse of Cumberland."

Now for the first time collected by Henry Lonsdale; With a preface, memoir, and notes by Patrick Maxwell
  

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A CURE FOR LOVE.
  
  
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A CURE FOR LOVE.

Time once at a synod agreed
To cure the abuses of love;
For Cupid had wrote such a creed
As none of the gods could approve.
But first, with Prometheus's leave,
A mortal he begg'd to create;
For as yet not a power could achieve
A conquest o'er love and o'er fate.
As Time in his travels had sound
The various specifics of earth,
Experience, with years rolling round,
Had given their qualities birth.

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This faithful associate he knew
Would cull every simple of use;
For Galen had taught where they grew,
And what the effects they produce.
Thus furnished from every clime,
His arduous work he began;
And still, as he tried to refine,
Exclaim'd, What a compound is Man!
Then flush'd with apparent success,
He thought all the hazard was o'er;
And, as he had made such a mess,
'Twas needless to add any more.
But alas! though the compound was fine,
One simple for ever was lost;
'Twas Memory, that blossom of time;
So Man remain'd dull as a post.
Good from evil by chemical art
An anodyne extract may prove;
But had Time not left out this one part,
Absence ne'er had been made to cure love.