Poems on Several Occasions :: :: University of Virginia Library

Help me, help me! Gentle Love;
All my wandring thoughts remove;
Fix 'em where they should be true,
They are all Corinna's due,
If a long and awful Reign,
Can in Love a Right obtain.
Or convince me, I am wrong,
Tell me! She has rul'd too long:
Tell me! That she was unkind;
That to Love she ne're inclin'd;

That her Arbitrary sway
Taught me first to disobey,
Oh! instruct me what to say.
I, confounded with my shame,
Dare not own another Flame.
Subjects, when they change a King,
Should some Lawful Reasons bring;
All my Reasons seem too weak,
I am Dumb and cannot speak;
How can I such Beauty wrong,
One so Witty, Gay and Young;
Every Charm, and every Grace,
Dwells in my Corinna's Face:
But my Cloe is as Fair,
Happier in a Charming Air:
So much Beauty, so much youth,
So much Innocence and Truth,

'Tis impossible to see,
And for Loving censure me.
Sure Corinna cannot blame,
Such a hopeful, happy Flame;
When she knows that if I burn,
Tis in hopes of a return.
Love, thy Dictates I persue,
Tell me therefore, what to do;
Shall I with Corinna part,
Shall I throw her from my Heart?
She does still my suit refuse,
Is not that a good excuse?
Oh! if 'tis not, tell me how
Justice can my Change allow?
Thou didst first my Soul Inspire,
Thou dost set my Heart on Fire,
When Corinna I remove,
Witness, all the fault is Love;

Let the Treachery be thine,
And the Frailty only mine.