Poems on Various Subjects with some Essays in Prose, Letters to Correspondents, &c. and A Treatise on Health. By Samuel Bowden |
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The SURPRIZE:
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 | Poems on Various Subjects |  |
385
The SURPRIZE:
Occasion'd by a Person's Receiving Mourning for a Friend, a young Lady, Who Feign'd herself Dead.
Are these the presents friends bestow?
Sad representatives of woe!
Black trophys of departing breath,
Signals of darkness, and of death.
Unwelcome gifts! which only wait
To dress the messenger of fate.
Sad representatives of woe!
Black trophys of departing breath,
Signals of darkness, and of death.
Unwelcome gifts! which only wait
To dress the messenger of fate.
And is the blooming fair one fled,
And Delia mingled with the dead?
She who all other darts defy'd,
Herself the fatal shaft has try'd.
Her air so sprightly, and so gay,
She banish'd every care away;
And when alive cou'd wonders do,
And keep her friends from dying too.
And Delia mingled with the dead?
She who all other darts defy'd,
Herself the fatal shaft has try'd.
Her air so sprightly, and so gay,
She banish'd every care away;
And when alive cou'd wonders do,
And keep her friends from dying too.
386
Thus while I musing sat in tears,
A grateful sound salutes my ears:
It is her voice, her air, her frame,
Or else, some visionary dream.
'Tis Delia's self! with glad surprize,
The living fair salutes my eyes.
To dying criminals, reprieve
Cou'd ne'er more rapturous pleasure give.
Not showers which cool the thirsty plain,
Not smiles to a despairing swain,
Than to my mind, opprest with care,
This Resurrection of the fair.
A grateful sound salutes my ears:
It is her voice, her air, her frame,
Or else, some visionary dream.
'Tis Delia's self! with glad surprize,
The living fair salutes my eyes.
To dying criminals, reprieve
Cou'd ne'er more rapturous pleasure give.
Not showers which cool the thirsty plain,
Not smiles to a despairing swain,
Than to my mind, opprest with care,
This Resurrection of the fair.
Life, like a flower, we often say,
Blooms fair awhile, then fades away.
You best the metaphor explain,
For you can die, and rise again.
Blooms fair awhile, then fades away.
You best the metaphor explain,
For you can die, and rise again.
But oh! how barbarous, how unkind,
To torture thus your lover's mind?
Each friend, for such rude treatment, thinks,
You are more savage than a Lynx;
And frolic as the apish tribe,
In the same region who reside.
May you, for this, for ever more,
Transported be to that wild shore,
Where baboons dance, and lions roar.
To torture thus your lover's mind?
Each friend, for such rude treatment, thinks,
You are more savage than a Lynx;
And frolic as the apish tribe,
In the same region who reside.
May you, for this, for ever more,
Transported be to that wild shore,
Where baboons dance, and lions roar.
| Poems on Various Subjects | |