 | [Poems in] Poetical miscellanies |  |
TO Mr. --- ---
By the same Hand.
You ask, my Friend, how I can Delia prize,
When Myra's Shape I view, or Cynthia's Eyes:
No tedious Answer shall create you Pain,
For Beauty, if but Beauty, I disdain.
'Tis not a Mien, that can my Will controul,
A speaking Body with a silent Soul.
The loveliest Face to me not lovely shows,
From the sweet Lips if melting Nonsense flows.
Nor must the tuneful Chloris be my Choice,
An Earthly Mind ill suits a Heav'nly Voice.
When Myra's Shape I view, or Cynthia's Eyes:
No tedious Answer shall create you Pain,
For Beauty, if but Beauty, I disdain.
'Tis not a Mien, that can my Will controul,
A speaking Body with a silent Soul.
The loveliest Face to me not lovely shows,
From the sweet Lips if melting Nonsense flows.
Nor must the tuneful Chloris be my Choice,
An Earthly Mind ill suits a Heav'nly Voice.
What! tho' my Delia not decay'd appears,
She wants (you cry) the gawdy Bloom of Years.
True; but good Sense perpetual Joys will bring,
Her Wit is ever youthful as the Spring.
Those flutt'ring Sparks, who fashionably burn,
And hourly for some fair Dorinda mourn:
Soon as the fancy'd Goddess is enjoy'd,
To find her Woman, sicken, and are cloy'd.
Not so my Delia shall consume her Charms,
But rise each Morn more Beauteous from my Arms.
With envious Swiftness rouling Years may move,
Impair her Glories, not impair my Love:
Time's wasteful Rage the Husband shall despise,
And view the Wife still with the Bridegroom's Eyes.
So kneels at some fam'd, antiquated Shrine,
The pious Pilgrim to the Pow'r Divine.
Around he sees wild, rugged Heaps of Stone,
Where Parian Marble once, and Jasper shone:
Yet conscious, what those Ruins were of Old,
Dares not, unmov'd, the mossie Walls behold;
But trembles at the Deity's Abode,
And owns the pow'rful Presence of the God.
She wants (you cry) the gawdy Bloom of Years.
217
Her Wit is ever youthful as the Spring.
Those flutt'ring Sparks, who fashionably burn,
And hourly for some fair Dorinda mourn:
Soon as the fancy'd Goddess is enjoy'd,
To find her Woman, sicken, and are cloy'd.
Not so my Delia shall consume her Charms,
But rise each Morn more Beauteous from my Arms.
With envious Swiftness rouling Years may move,
Impair her Glories, not impair my Love:
Time's wasteful Rage the Husband shall despise,
And view the Wife still with the Bridegroom's Eyes.
So kneels at some fam'd, antiquated Shrine,
The pious Pilgrim to the Pow'r Divine.
Around he sees wild, rugged Heaps of Stone,
Where Parian Marble once, and Jasper shone:
Yet conscious, what those Ruins were of Old,
Dares not, unmov'd, the mossie Walls behold;
But trembles at the Deity's Abode,
And owns the pow'rful Presence of the God.
| [Poems in] Poetical miscellanies | |