 | Poems on Several Occasions |  |
236
An Epistle to my Wife.
Wrote from London in the second Year of our Marriage.
By the Same.
Health to his best-belov'd her Lover sends:
For this the daily Knee to Heav'n he bends,
For this ten thousand tender Wishes rise,
And Care for this ten thousand Fears supplies,
O may kind Heav'n, in pity to my Pain,
Vouchsafe to give me to thy Arms again!
With living Lustre, to behold thy Face
Adorn'd, and blooming with its usual Grace!
Not the bright Beauties, this gay Town can boast,
Not all the Joys, which every Sense accost,
While You are absent, can presume to please,
Or give my solitary Spirit Ease.
From Wine, from Wits, from Pleasures of the Sight
You and the sylvan Scenes my Muse invite.
The sylvan Scenes, with your dear Presence blest,
Inspire delicious Raptures in my Breast:
With spritely Images my Fancy raise,
And wake the Spirit of harmonious Lays.
For this the daily Knee to Heav'n he bends,
For this ten thousand tender Wishes rise,
And Care for this ten thousand Fears supplies,
O may kind Heav'n, in pity to my Pain,
Vouchsafe to give me to thy Arms again!
With living Lustre, to behold thy Face
Adorn'd, and blooming with its usual Grace!
237
Not all the Joys, which every Sense accost,
While You are absent, can presume to please,
Or give my solitary Spirit Ease.
From Wine, from Wits, from Pleasures of the Sight
You and the sylvan Scenes my Muse invite.
The sylvan Scenes, with your dear Presence blest,
Inspire delicious Raptures in my Breast:
With spritely Images my Fancy raise,
And wake the Spirit of harmonious Lays.
Marriage! sweet Theme of unpolluted Song,
Cement of Souls, so fine and yet so strong!
Thine is the chaste Desire, the Love sincere,
Unstain'd with Guilt and unconfus'd by Fear;
The fervent Care to please, the social Joys,
Excited by the Charms each Sex employs.
Pleasure unknown, beneath thy gentle Sway,
A thousand trivial Incidents convey:
Unknown to those, who thy Dominion scorn,
A Race of Mortals, lonesome and forlorn:
Unloving and unlov'd they live, and die
Bewail'd by no kind Tear, or pitying Sigh:
They disappear, as Clouds before the Wind,
And leave no Traces of themselves behind.
Cement of Souls, so fine and yet so strong!
Thine is the chaste Desire, the Love sincere,
Unstain'd with Guilt and unconfus'd by Fear;
The fervent Care to please, the social Joys,
Excited by the Charms each Sex employs.
238
A thousand trivial Incidents convey:
Unknown to those, who thy Dominion scorn,
A Race of Mortals, lonesome and forlorn:
Unloving and unlov'd they live, and die
Bewail'd by no kind Tear, or pitying Sigh:
They disappear, as Clouds before the Wind,
And leave no Traces of themselves behind.
| Poems on Several Occasions | |