 |
 | The works (1749) |  |
232
To the Lady Lovisa Lenos: With Ovid's Epistles.
In moving lines these few epistles tell
What fate attends the nymph that likes too well:
How faintly the successful lovers burn;
And their neglected charms how ladies mourn.
The fair you'll find, when soft intreaties fail,
Assert their uncontested right, and rail.
Too soon they listen, and resent too late;
'Tis sure they love, whene'er they strive to hate.
Their sex or proudly shuns, or poorly craves;
Commencing tyrants, and concluding slaves.
What fate attends the nymph that likes too well:
How faintly the successful lovers burn;
And their neglected charms how ladies mourn.
The fair you'll find, when soft intreaties fail,
Assert their uncontested right, and rail.
Too soon they listen, and resent too late;
'Tis sure they love, whene'er they strive to hate.
Their sex or proudly shuns, or poorly craves;
Commencing tyrants, and concluding slaves.
In diff'ring breasts what diff'ring passions glow!
Ours kindle quick, but yours extinguish slow.
The fire we boast, with force uncertain burns,
And breaks but out, as appetite returns:
But yours, like incense, mounts by soft degrees,
And in a fragrant flame consumes to please.
Ours kindle quick, but yours extinguish slow.
The fire we boast, with force uncertain burns,
And breaks but out, as appetite returns:
But yours, like incense, mounts by soft degrees,
And in a fragrant flame consumes to please.
Your sex, in all that can engage, excell;
And ours in patience, and persuading well.
Impartial nature equally decrees:
You have your pride, and we our perjuries.
Tho' form'd to conquer, yet too oft you fall
By giving nothing, or by granting all.
And ours in patience, and persuading well.
Impartial nature equally decrees:
You have your pride, and we our perjuries.
Tho' form'd to conquer, yet too oft you fall
By giving nothing, or by granting all.
But, Madam, long will your unpractis'd years
Smile at the tale of lover's hopes, and fears.
Tho' infant graces sooth your gentle hours,
More soft than sighs, more sweet than breathing flow'rs;
Let rash admirers your keen light'ning fear;
'Tis bright at distance, but destroys if near.
Smile at the tale of lover's hopes, and fears.
Tho' infant graces sooth your gentle hours,
More soft than sighs, more sweet than breathing flow'rs;
Let rash admirers your keen light'ning fear;
'Tis bright at distance, but destroys if near.
The time e'er long, if verse presage, will come,
Your charms shall open in full Brudenal bloom.
All eyes shall gaze, all hearts shall homage vow,
And not a lover languish but for you.
The muse shall string her lyre, with garlands crown'd,
And each bright nymph shall sicken at the sound.
Your charms shall open in full Brudenal bloom.
233
And not a lover languish but for you.
The muse shall string her lyre, with garlands crown'd,
And each bright nymph shall sicken at the sound.
So when Aurora first salutes the sight,
Pleas'd we behold the tender dawn of light;
But when with riper red she warms the skies,
In circling throngs the wing'd musicians rise:
And the gay groves rejoice in symphonies.
Each pearly flow'r with painted beauty shines;
And ev'ry star its fading fire resigns.
Pleas'd we behold the tender dawn of light;
But when with riper red she warms the skies,
In circling throngs the wing'd musicians rise:
And the gay groves rejoice in symphonies.
Each pearly flow'r with painted beauty shines;
And ev'ry star its fading fire resigns.
To Richard Earl of Burlington, with Ovid's Art of Love.
My Lord,
Our poet's rules, in easy numbers tell,
He felt the passion he describes so well.
In that soft art successfully refin'd,
Tho' angry Cæsar frown'd, the fair were kind.
More ills from love, than tyrants malice flow;
Jove's thunder strikes less sure than Cupid's bow.
He felt the passion he describes so well.
In that soft art successfully refin'd,
Tho' angry Cæsar frown'd, the fair were kind.
More ills from love, than tyrants malice flow;
Jove's thunder strikes less sure than Cupid's bow.
Ovid both felt the pain, and found the ease:
Physicians study most their own disease.
The practice of that age in this we try,
Ladies wou'd listen then, and lovers lye.
Who flatter'd most the fair were most polite,
Each thought her own admirer in the right:
To be but faintly rude was criminal,
But to be boldly so, atton'd for all.
Breeding was banish'd for the fair-one's sake,
The sex ne'er gives, but suffers ours shou'd take.
Physicians study most their own disease.
The practice of that age in this we try,
Ladies wou'd listen then, and lovers lye.
Who flatter'd most the fair were most polite,
Each thought her own admirer in the right:
To be but faintly rude was criminal,
But to be boldly so, atton'd for all.
Breeding was banish'd for the fair-one's sake,
The sex ne'er gives, but suffers ours shou'd take.
Advice to you, my lord, in vain we bring,
The flow'rs ne'er fail to meet the blooming spring.
Tho' you possess all nature's gifts, take care;
Love's queen has charms, but fatal is her snare.
The flow'rs ne'er fail to meet the blooming spring.
234
Love's queen has charms, but fatal is her snare.
On all that goddess her false smiles bestows,
As on the seas she reigns, from whence she rose.
Young zephyrs sigh with fragrant breath, soft gales
Guide her gay barge, and swell the silken sails:
Each silver wave in beauteous order moves,
Fair as her bosom, gentle as her doves;
But he that once embarks, too surely finds
A sullen sky, black storms, and angry winds;
Cares, fears, and anguish, hov'ring on the coast,
And wrecks of wretches by their folly lost.
As on the seas she reigns, from whence she rose.
Young zephyrs sigh with fragrant breath, soft gales
Guide her gay barge, and swell the silken sails:
Each silver wave in beauteous order moves,
Fair as her bosom, gentle as her doves;
But he that once embarks, too surely finds
A sullen sky, black storms, and angry winds;
Cares, fears, and anguish, hov'ring on the coast,
And wrecks of wretches by their folly lost.
When coming time shall bless you with a bride,
Let passion not persuade, but reason guide:
Instead of gold, let gentle truth endear;
She has most charms that is the most sincere.
Shun vain variety, 'tis but disease;
Weak appetites are ever hard to please.
The nymph must fear to be inquisitive;
'Tis for the sex's quiet to believe.
Her air an easy confidence must show,
And shun to find what she wou'd dread to know;
Still charming with all arts that can engage,
And be the Juliana of the age.
Let passion not persuade, but reason guide:
Instead of gold, let gentle truth endear;
She has most charms that is the most sincere.
Shun vain variety, 'tis but disease;
Weak appetites are ever hard to please.
The nymph must fear to be inquisitive;
'Tis for the sex's quiet to believe.
Her air an easy confidence must show,
And shun to find what she wou'd dread to know;
Still charming with all arts that can engage,
And be the Juliana of the age.
VERSES written for the toasting-glasses of the Kit-cat-club. 1703.
Lady CARLISLE.Carlisle's a name can ev'ry muse inspire,
To Carlisle fill the glass, and tune the lyre.
With his lov'd bays the god of day shall crown
A wit and lustre equal to his own.
235
At once the sun and Carlisle took their way,
To warm the frozen north, and kindle day;
The flow'rs to both their glad creation ow'd,
Their virtues he, their beauties she bestow'd.
Lady ESSEX.
The bravest hero, and the brightest dame
From Belgia's happy clime Britannia drew;
One pregnant cloud we find does often frame
The awful thunder, and the gentle dew.
The SAME.
To Essex fill the sprightly wine,
The health's engaging and divine:
Let purest odours scent the air,
And wreaths of roses bind our hair.
Lady HYDE.
The god of wine grows jealous of his art,
He only fires the head, but Hyde the heart.
The queen of love looks on, and smiles to see
A nymph more mighty than a deity.
On Lady HYDE in child-bed.
Hyde, tho' in agonies, her graces keeps,A thousand charms the nymph's complaints adorn;
In tears of dew so mild Aurora weeps,
But her bright offspring is the chearful morn.
When Jove to Ida did the gods invite,
And in immortal toasting pass'd the night,
With more than nectar be the banquet bless'd,
For Wharton was the Venus of the feast.
237
On the King of Spain.
Pallas, destructive to the Trojan line,Raz'd their proud walls, tho' built by hands divine;
But Love's bright goddess, with propitious grace,
Preserv'd a heroe, and restor'd the race.
Thus the fam'd empire where the Iber flows,
Fell by Eliza, and by Anna rose.
To the Dutchess of B--- on her staying all the winter in the country.
Cease rural conquests, and set free your swains,
To Dryads leave the groves, to nymphs the plains.
In pensive dales alone let echo dwell,
And each sad sigh she hears with sorrow tell.
Haste, let your eyes at Kent's pavilion shine,
It wants but stars, and then the work's divine.
Of late, fame only tells of yielding towns,
Of captive gen'rals, and protected crowns:
Of purchas'd laurels, and of battles won,
Lines forc'd, states vanquish'd, provinces o'er-run,
And all Alcides's labour summ'd in one.
To Dryads leave the groves, to nymphs the plains.
In pensive dales alone let echo dwell,
And each sad sigh she hears with sorrow tell.
Haste, let your eyes at Kent's pavilion shine,
It wants but stars, and then the work's divine.
Of late, fame only tells of yielding towns,
Of captive gen'rals, and protected crowns:
Of purchas'd laurels, and of battles won,
Lines forc'd, states vanquish'd, provinces o'er-run,
And all Alcides's labour summ'd in one.
The brave must to the fair now yield the prize,
And English arms submit to English eyes:
In which bright list among the first you stand;
Tho' each a goddess, or a Sunderland.
And English arms submit to English eyes:
In which bright list among the first you stand;
Tho' each a goddess, or a Sunderland.
239
Prologue to the Musick-meeting in York-Buildings.
Where music and more pow'rful beauties reign,Who can support the pleasure, and the pain?
Here their soft magic those two syrens try,
And if we listen, or but look, we die.
Why should we then the wond'rous tales admire,
Of Orpheus' numbers, or Amphion's lyre?
Behold this scene of beauty, and confess
The wonder greater, and the fiction less.
Like human victims here we are decreed
To worship those bright altars where we bleed.
Who braves his fate in fields, must tremble here;
Triumphant love more vassals makes than fear.
No faction homage to the fair denies;
The right divine's apparent in their eyes.
That empire's fix'd, that's founded in desire;
Those fires the vestals guard, can ne'er expire.
EPILOGUE to the Tragedy of CATO.
What odd fantastic things we women do!Who wou'd not listen when young lovers woo?
What! die a maid, yet have the choice of two!
Ladies are often cruel to their cost:
To give you pain, themselves they punish most.
240
Too oft they're cancell'd, tho' in convents made.
Wou'd you revenge such rash resolves—you may
Be spiteful—and believe the thing we say;
We hate you, when you're easily said nay.
How needless, if you knew us, were your fears?
Let love have eyes, and beauty will have ears.
Our hearts are form'd, as you your selves would chuse,
Too proud to ask, too humble to refuse:
We give to merit, and to wealth we sell;
He sighs with most success that settles well.
The woes of wedlock with the joys we mix;
'Tis best repenting in a coach and six;
Blame not our conduct, since we but pursue
Those lively lessons we have learn'd from you:
Your breasts no more the fire of beauty warms,
But wicked wealth usurps the pow'r of charms
What pains to get the gaudy thing you hate,
To swell in show, and be a wretch in state!
At plays you ogle, at the ring you bow;
Ev'n churches are no sanctuaries now;
There golden idols all your vows receive;
She is no goddess who has nought to give.
Oh may once more the happy age appear,
When words were artless, and the soul sincere;
When gold and grandeur were unenvy'd things,
And crowns less coveted than groves and springs.
Love then shall only mourn when truth complains,
And constancy feel transport in its chains;
Sighs with success their own soft anguish tell,
And eyes shall utter what the lips conceal:
Virtue again to its bright station climb,
And beauty fear no enemy but time:
The fair shall listen to desert alone,
And every Lucia find a Cato's son.
The End of the First Volume.
| The works (1749) | |