PRetty Floramel, no Tongue can ever tell,
The Charms that in thee dwell;
Those Soul-melting Pleasures,
Shou’d the mighty Jove once view, he’d be in Love,
And plunder all above,
To rain down his Treasure:
Ah! said the Nymph in the Shepherd’s Arms,
Had you half so much Love as you say I have Charms;
There’s not a Soul, created for Man and Love,
More true than Floramel wou’d prove,
I’d o’er the World with thee rove.

Love that’s truly free, had never Jealousie,
But artful Love may be
Both doubtful and wooing;
Ah! dear Shepherdess, ne’er doubt, for you may guess,
My Heart will prove no less,
Than ever endless loving:
Then cries the Nymph, like the Sun thou shalt be,
And I, like kind Earth, will produce all to thee;
Of ev’ry Flower in Love’s Garden I’ll Off’rings pay
To my Saint. Nay then pray
Take not those dear Eyes away.

BY shady Woods and purling Streams,
I spend my Life in pleasing Dreams;
And would not for the World be thought
To change my false delightful Thought:
For who, alas! can happy be,
That does the Truth of all things see?
For who, alas! can happy be,
That does the Truth of all things see.

IN Chloris all soft Charms agree,
Enchanting Humour pow’rful Wit;
Beauty from Affectation free,
And for Eternal Empire fit:
Where-e’er she goes, Love waits her Eyes,
The Women Envy, Men adore;
Tho’ did she less the Triumph Prize,
She wou’d deserve the Conquest more.

But Vanity so much prevails,
She begs what else none can deny her;
And with inviting treach’rous Smiles
Gives hopes which ev’n prevent desire:
Reaches at every trifling Heart,
Grows warm with ev’ry glimm’ring Flame:
And common Prey so deads her Dart,
It scarce can wound a noble Game.

I could lye Ages at her Feet,
Adore her careless of my Pain;
With tender Vows her Rigour meet,
Despair, love on, and not complain:
My Passion from all change secur’d,
Favours may rise, no Frown controuls;
I any Torment can endure,
But hoping with a crowd of Fools.

WHEN busie Fame o’er all the Plain,
Velinda’s Praises rung;
And on their Oaten Pipes each Swain
Her matchless Beauty sung:
The Envious Nymphs were forc’d to yield
She had the sweetest Face;
No emulous disputes were held,
But for the second place.

Young Coridon, whose stubborn Heart
No Beauty e’er could move;
But smil’d at Cupid’s Bow and Dart,
And brav’d the God of Love:
Would view this Nymph, and pleas’d at first,
Such silent Charms to see:
With Wonder gaz’d, then sigh’d, and curs’d
His Curiosity.

WHy am I the only Creature,
Must a ruin’d Love pursue;
Other Passions yield to Nature,
Mine there’s nothing can subdue:
Not the Glory of Possessing,
Monarch wishes gave me ease,
More and more the mighty Blessings
Did my raging Pains encrease.

Nor could Jealousie relieve me,
Tho’ it ever waited near;
Cloath’d in gawdy Pow’r to grieve me,
Still the Monster would appear:
That, nor Time, nor Absence neither,
Nor Despair removes my Pain;
I endure them all together,
Yet my Torments still remain.

Had alone her matchless beauty,
Set my amorous Heart on Fire,
Age at last would do its Duty,
Fuel ceasing, Flames expire.
But her Mind immortal grows,
Makes my Love immortal too;
Nature ne’er created Faces,
Can the Charms of Souls undoe.

And to make my Loss the greater,
She laments it as her own;
Could she scorn me, I might hate her,
But alas! she shews me none:
Then since Fortune is my Ruin,
In Retirement I’ll Complain;
And in rage for my undoing,
Ne’er come in its Power again.

LAurinda, who did love Disdain,
For whom had languish’d many a Swain:
Leading her bleating Flocks to drink,
She ’spy’d upon a River’s brink
A Youth, whose Eyes did well declare,
How much he lov’d, but lov’d not her.

At first she laugh’d, but gaz’d a while,
Which soon it lessen’d to a smile;
Thence to Surprize and Wonder came,
Her Breast to heave, her Heart to flame:
Then cry’d she out, Ah! now I prove
Thou art a God most mighty Jove.

She would have spoke, but shame deny’d,
And bid her first consult her Pride;
But soon she found that aid was gone,
For Jove, alass! had left her none:
Ah! now she burns! but ’tis too late,
For in his Eyes she reads her Fate.

FAIR Cælia too fondly contemns those Delights,
Wherewith gentle Nature hath soften’d the Nights;
If she be so kind to present us with Pow’r,
The Fault is our own to neglect the good Hour:
Who gave thee this Beauty, ordain’d thou should’st be,
As kind to thy Slaves, as the Gods were to thee.

Then Cælia no longer reserve the vain Pride,
Of wronging thy self, to see others deny’d;
If Love be a Pleasure, alass! you will find,
We both are not happy, when both are most kind:
But Women, like Priests, do in others reprove,
And call that thing Lust, which in them is but Love.

What they thro’ their Madness and Folly create,
We poor silly Slaves still impute to our Fate;
But in such Distempers where Love is the Grief,
’Tis Cælia, not Heaven, must give us Relief:
Then away with those Titles of Honour and Cause,
Which first made us sin, by giving us Laws.

I Lik’d, but never Lov’d before
I saw that charming Face;
Now every Feature I adore,
And doat on ev’ry Grace:
She ne’er shall know that kind desire,
Which her cold Looks denies,
Unless my Heart that’s all on Fire,
Should sparkle through my Eyes:
Then if no gentle Glance return,
A silent Leave to speak;
My Heart which would for ever burn,
Alass! must sigh and break.

WHERE would coy Amyntas run,
From a despairing Lover’s Story?
When her Eyes have Conquest won,
Why should her Ear refuse the Glory:
Shall a Slave, whose Racks constrain,
Be forbidden to complain;
Let her scorn me, let her Fly me,
Let her Looks, her Love deny me:
Ne’er shall my Heart yield to despair,
Or my Tongue cease to tell my Care,
Or my Tongue cease to tell my Care:
Much to love, and much to pray,
Is to Heav’n the only way.

A Wife I do hate,
For either she’s False, or she’s Jealous;
But give me a Mate,
Who nothing will ask us or tell us:
She stands at no Terms,
Nor Chaffers by way of Indenture:
Or Loves for the Farms,
But takes the kind Man at a Venture.

If all prove not right,
Without an Act, Process or Warning,
From Wife for a Night,
You may be divorc’d the next Morning,
Where Parents are Slaves,
Their Brats can’t be any other;
Great Wits and great Braves,
Have always a Punk to their Mother.

TELL me ye Sicilian Swains,
Why this Mourning’s o’er your Plains;
Where’s your usual Melody?
Why are all your Shepherds mad,
And your Shepherdesses sad?
What can the mighty meaning be?
Chorus. Sylvia the Glory of our Plains;
Sylvia the Love of all our Swains;
That blest us with her Smiles:
Where ev’ry Shepherd had a Heart,
And ev’ry Shepherdess a Part;
Slights our Gods, and leaves our Isle,
Slights our Gods, and leaves our Isle.

WHEN gay Philander left the Plain,
The Love, the Life of ev’ry Swain;
His Pipe the mournful Strephon took,
By some sad Bank and murm’ring Brook:
Whilst list’ning Flocks forsook their Food,
And Melancholy by him stood;
On the cold Ground himself he laid,
And thus the Mournful Shepherd play’d.

Farewel to all that’s bright and gay,
No more glad Night and chearing Day;
No more the Sun will gild our Plain,
’Till the lost Youth return again:
Then every pensive Heart that now,
With Mournful Willow shades his Brow;
Shall crown’d with chearful Garlands sing,
And all shall seem Eternal Spring.

Say, mighty Pan, if you did know,
Say all ye rural Gods below;
’Mongst all Youths that grac’d your Plain,
So gay so beautiful a Swain:
In whose sweet Air and charming Voice,
Our list’ning Swains did all Rejoyce;
Him only, O ye Gods! restore
Your Nymphs, and Shepherds ask no more.

HOW Happy’s the Mortal whose Heart is his own,
And for his own Quiet’s beholden to none,
(Eccho. Beholden to none, to none;)
That to Love’s Enchantments ne’er lendeth an Ear,
Which a Frown or a Smile can equally bear,
(Eccho. Can equally bear, can bear,)
Nor on ev’ry frail Beauty still fixes an Eye,
But from those sly Felons doth prudently fly,
(Eccho. Doth prudently, prudently fly, doth fly;)
For the Heart that still wanders is pounded at last,
And ’tis hard to relieve it when once it is fast,
(Eccho. When once it is fast, is fast.)

By sporting with Dangers still longer and longer,
The Fetters and Chains of the Captive grows stronger;
He drills on his Evil, then curses his Fate,
And bewails those Misfortunes himself did create:
Like an empty Camelion he lives on the Air,
And all the Day lingers ’twixt Hope and Despair;
Like a Fly in the Candle he sports and he Games,
’Till a Victim in Folly, he dies in the Flames.

If Love, so much talk’d of, a Heresie be,
Of all it enslaves few true Converts we see;
If hectoring and huffing would once do the Feat,
There’s few that would fail of a Vict’ry Compleat;
But with Gain to come off, and the Tyrant subdue,
Is an Art that is hitherto practis’d by few;
How easie is Freedom once had to maintain,
But Liberty lost is as hard to regain.

This driv’ling and sniv’ling, and chiming in Parts,
This wining and pining, and breaking of Hearts;
All pensive and silent in Corners to sit,
Are pretty fine Pastimes for those that want Wit:
When this Passion and Fashion doth so far abuse ’em,
It were good the State should for Pendulums use ’em;
For if Reason it seize on, and make it give o’er,
No Labour can save, or reliev’t any more.

A Thousand several ways I try’d,
To hide my Passion from your view;
Conscious that I should be deny’d,
Because I cannot Merit you:
Absence, the last and worst of all,
Did so encrease my wretched Pain,
That I return’d, rather to fall
By the swift Fate, by the swift Fate of your Disdain.

TO the Grove, gentle Love, let us be going,
Where the kind Spring and Wind all Day are Woing;
He with soft sighing Blasts strives to o’er-take her,
She would not tho’ she flies, have him forsake her,
But in circling Rings returning,
And in purling Whispers Mourning;
She swells and pants, as if she’d say,
Fain I would, but dare not stay.

TELL me no more of Flames in Love,
That common dull pretence,
Fools in Romances use to move
Soft Hearts of little Sense:
No, Strephon, I’m not such a Slave,
Love’s banish’d Power to own;
Since Interest and Convenience have
So long usurp’d his Throne.

No burning Hope or cold Despair,
Dull Groves or purling Streams,
Sighing and talking to the Air
In Love’s fantastick Dreams,
Can move my Pity or my Hate,
But Satyrist I’ll prove,
And all ridiculous create
That shall pretend to Love.

Love was a Monarch once, ’tis true,
And God-like rul’d alone,
And tho’ his Subjects were but few,
Their Hearts were all his own;
But since the Slaves revolted are,
And turn’d into a State,
Their Int’rest is their only Care,
And Love grows out of Date.

WEalth breeds Care, Love, Hope and Fear;
What does Love our Business hear?
While Bacchus merry does appear,
Fight on and fear no sinking,
Charge it briskly to the Brim,
’Till the flying Top-sails swim,
We owe the great Discovery to him
Of this new World of Drinking.

Grave Cabals that States refine,
Mingle their Debates with Wine;
Ceres and the God o’th’ Wine;
Makes every great Commander.
Let sober Sots Small-beer subdue,
The Wise and valiant Wine does woe;
The Stagyrite had the honour to
Be drunk with Alexander.

Stand to your Arms, and now Advance
A Health to the English King of France;
On to the next a bon Speranze,
By Bacchus and Apollo.
Thus in State I lead the Van,
Fall in your Place by your right-hand Man,
Beat Drum! now March! Dub a dub, ran dan,
He’s a Whig that will not follow.

THO’ Fortune and Love may be Deities still,
To those they Oblige by their Pow’r;
For my Part, they ever have us’d me so ill,
They cannot expect I’ll adore:
Hereafter a Temple to Friendship I’ll raise,
And dedicate there all the rest of my Days,
To the Goddess accepted my Vows,
To the Goddess accepted my Vows.

Thou perfectest Image of all things Divine,
Bright Center of endless Desires,
May the Glory be yours, and the Services mine,
When I light at your Altars the Fires.
I offer a Heart has Devotion so pure,
It would for your Service all Torments endure,
Might you but have all things you wish,
Might you, &c.

But yet the Goddess of Fools to despise,
I find I’m too much in her Power;
She makes me go where ’tis in vain to be wise,
In absence of her I adore:
If Love then undoes me before I get back,
I still with resignment receive the Attack,
Or languish away in Despair,
Or languish, &c.

HE himself courts his own Ruin,
That with too great Passion sues ’em:
When Men Whine too much in Wooing,
Women with like Coquets use ’em:
Some by this way of addressing
Have the Sex so far transported,
That they’ll fool away the Blessing
For the Pride of being Courted.

Jilt and smile when we adore ’em,
While some Blockhead buys the Favour;
Presents have more Power o’er ’em
Than all our soft Love and Labour,
Thus, like Zealots, with screw’d Faces,
We our fooling make the greater,
While we cant long winded Graces,
Others they fall to the Creature.

CEase lovely Strephon, cease to charm;
Useless, alas! is all this Art;
It’s needless you should strongly arm,
To take a too, too willing Heart:
I hid my weakness all I could,
And chid my pratling tell-tale Eyes,
For fear the easie Conquest should
Take from the value of the Prize.

But oh! th’ unruly Passion grew
So fast, it could not be conceal’d,
And soon, alas! I found to you
I must without Conditions yield,
Tho’ you have thus surpriz’d my Heart,
Yet use it kindly, for you know,
It’s not a gallant Victor’s part
To insult o’er a vanquish’d Foe.

YOU happy Youths, whose Hearts are free
From Love’s Imperial Chain,
Henceforth be warn’d and taught by me,
And taught by me to avoid inchanting Pain,
Fatal the Wolves to trembling Flocks,
Sharp Winds to Blossoms prove:
To careless Seamen, hidden Rocks;
To human quiet Love.

Fly the Fair-Sex, if Bliss you prize,
The Snake’s beneath the Flow’r:
Whoever gaz’d on Beauties Eyes,
That tasted Quiet more?
The Kind with restless Jealousie,
The Cruel fill with Care;
With baser Falshood those betray,
These kill us with Despair.

WHEN first Amyntas charm’d my Heart,
The heedless Sheep began to stray;
The Wolves soon stole the greatest part,
And all will now be made a Prey:
Ah! let not Love your Thoughts possess,
’Tis fatal to a Shepherdess;
The dangerous Passion you must shun,
Or else like me, be quite undone.

HOW happy and free is the resolute Swain,
That denies to submit to the Yoak of the Fair;
Free from Excesses of Pleasure and Pain,
Neither dazl’d with Hope, nor deprest with Despair.
He’s safe from Disturbance, and calmly enjoys
All the Pleasures of Love, without Clamour and Noise.

Poor Shepherds in vain their Affections reveal,
To a Nymph that is peevish, proud sullen and coy;
Vainly do Virgins their Passions conceal,
For they boil in their Grief, ’till themselves they destroy,
And thus the poor Darling lies under a Curse:
To be check’d in the Womb, or o’erlaid by the Nurse.

WHY so pale and wan fond Lover?
Prithee, prithee, Prithee why so pale:
Will, when looking well can’t move her,
Looking Ill, looking ill prevail?
Why so dull and mute young Sinner?
Prithee, prithee why so mute;
Will, when speaking well can’t win her,
Saying nothing, nothing do’t?
Quit, quit for shame, this will not move,
This cannot, cannot, cannot, cannot take her;
If of her self she will not love,
Nothing can, nothing can make her,
The Devil, the Devil, the Devil, the Devil take her.

THAT little Patch upon your Face
Wou’d seem a Foil on one less Fair,
Wou’d seem a Foil, wou’d seem a Foil,
Wou’d seem a Foil on one less Fair:
On you it hides a charming Grace,
And you in Pity, you in Pity,
You in Pity plac’d it there;
On you it hides a Charming Grace,
And you in Pity, you in Pity,
In Pity plac’d it there.
And you in Pity, Pity,
And you in Pity plac’d it there.

IRIS beware when Strephon pursues you,
’Tis but to boast a Conquest won:
All his Designs are aim’d to undo you,
Break off the Love he has begun:
When he’s Addressing, and prays for the Blessing,
Which none but his Iris can give alone;
O then beware, ’tis all to undo you,
’Tis but to boast a Conquest won:
She that’s believing, while he is deceiving,
Like many already, will be undone;
Iris beware when Strephon pursues you,
’Tis but to boast a Conquest won.

HOW charming Phillis is, how Fair,
How charming Phillis is, how Fair,
O that she were as willing,
To ease my wounded Heart of Care,
And make her Eyes less killing;
To ease my wounded Heart of Care,
And make her Eyes less killing;
To ease my wounded Heart of Care,
And make her Eyes less killing;
To ease my wounded Heart of Care,
And make her Eyes less killing.

I Sigh, I Sigh, I Languish now,
And Love will not let me rest;
I drive about the Park and Bow,
Where-e’er I meet my Dearest.

CEASE whining Damon to Complain,
Of thy Unhappy Fate;
That Sylvia should thy Love disdain,
Which lasting was and great.

For Love so constant flames so bright,
More unsuccessful prove:
Than cold neglect and sudden slight,
To gain the Nymph you love.

Then only you’ll obtain the Prize,
When you her Coyness use;
If you pursue the Fair, she flies,
But if you fly, pursues.

Had Phœbus not pursu’d so fast
The seeming cruel she;
The God a Virgin had embrac’d,
And not a lifeless Tree.