Nor this I would, if reafon could command,
But what reftriction reins a lover's hand?
Nor prudence, shame, nor pride, nor int'rest sways,
The hand implicitly the heart obeys:
Too well this maxim has my conduct fhewn,
Too well that conduct to the world is known.
Oft have I writ, and often to the flame
Condemn'd this after-witness of my fhame;
Oft in my cooler recollected thought,
Thy beauties, and my fondness half forgot,
(How fhort thofe intervals for reafon's aid!)
Thus to myself in anguifh have I faid.
Thy vain remonftrance, foolish maid, give o'er, Who act the wrong, can ne'er that wrong deplore. Then fanguine hopes again delufive reign, I form'd thee melting, as I tell my pain. If not of rock thy flinty heart is made, Nor tygers nurs'd thee in the defart fhade, Let me at least thy cold compaffion prove, That flender fuftenance of greedy love: Though no return my warmer wishes find, Be to the wretch, though not the mistress, kind; Nor whilft I court my melancholy state,
Forget 'twas love, and thee, that wrought my fate.
Without reftraint habituate to range
The paths of pleasure; can I bear this change?
Doom'd from the world unwilling to retire,
In bloom of life, and warm with
young defire, In lieu of roofs with regal fplendor gay,
Condemn'd in diftant wilds to drag the day;
Where beafts of prey maintain their favage court,
Or human brutes (the worst of brutes) refort.
Yes, yes, the change I could unfighing see,
For none I mourn, but what I find in thee,
There center all my woes, thy heart eftrang'd,
I weep my lover, not my fortune, chang'd;
Blefs'd with thy prefence, I could all forget,
Nor gilded palaces in huts regret,
But exil'd thence, fuperfluous is the reft,
Each place the fame, my hell is in my
To pleasure dead, and living but to pain,
My only fense to fuffer, and complain.
As all my wrongs distressful I repeat,
Say, can thy pulfe with equal cadence beat?
Can'ft thou know peace? is confcience mute within ?
That upright delegate for fecret fin;
Is nature fo extinguish'd in thy heart,
That not one spark remains to take my part?
Not one repentant throb, one grateful figh?
Thy breast unruffled, and unwet thy eye?
Thou cool betrayer, temperate in ill!
Thou nor remorse, nor thought humane can'st feel:
Nature has form'd thee of the rougher kind,
And education more debas'd thy mind,
Born in an age when guilt and fraud prevail,
When Justice fleeps, and Int'reft holds the scale;
Thy loose companions a licentious crew,
Most to each other, all to us untrue,
Whom chance, or habit mix, but rarely choice,
Nor leagu'd in friendship, but in focial vice,
Who indigent of honour, or of shame,
Glory in crimes which others blush to name;
By right or wrong difdaining to be mov'd,
Unprincipled, unloving, and unlov'd.
The fair who trufts their prostituted vows,
If not their falfhood, ftill their boasts expose;
Nor knows the wifeft to elude the harm,
Ev'n fhe whose prudence fhuns the tinfel charm
They know to flander, though they fail to warm:
They make her languish in fictitious flame,
Affix fome fpecious flander on her name,
And baffled by her virtue, triumph o'er her fame.
These are the leaders of thy blinded youth, These vile feducers laugh'd thee out of truth; Whofe fcurril jests all folemn ties profane,
Or Friendship's band, or Hymen's facred chain;
Morality as weakness they upbraid,
Nor ev'n revere Religion's hallow'd head
Alike they spurn divine and human laws,
And treat the honest like the christian cause.
Curfe on that tongue whose vile pernicious art
Delights the ear but to corrupt the heart,
That takes advantage of the chearful hour,
When weaken'd Virtue bends to Nature's pow'r,
And would the goodness of the foul efface,
To fubftitute difhonour in her place.
With fuch you lose the day in falfe delights,
In lewd debauch you revel out the nights,
(O fatal commerce to Monimia's peace!)
Their arguments convince because they please ;
Whilst sophistry for reason they admit,
And wander dazzled by the glare of wit,
Wit that on ill a fpecious luftre throws,
And in false colours every object shows,
That gilds the wrong, depreciating the right,
And hurts the judgment, while it feasts the sight;
So in the prism to the deluded eye
Each pictur'd trifle takes a rainbow dye,
With borrow'd charms the fhining profpect glows,
And truth revers'd the faithlefs mirror fhows,
Inverted scenes in bright confufion lie,
The lawns impending o'er the nether sky;
No juft, no real images we meet,
But all the gaudy vifion is deceit.
Oft I revolve in this distracted mind Each word, each look, that spoke my But oh! how dear their memory I pay!
What pleasures past can present cares allay?
Of all I love for ever difpoffefs'd:
Ah! what avails to think I once was blefs'd ?
Hard difpofition of unequal fate!
Mix'd are our joys, and tranfient are their date;
Nor can reflection bring them back again,
Yet brings an after-fting to every pain.
Thy fatal letters, oh immoral youth,
Those perjur'd pledges of fictitious truth,
Dear as they were no fecond joy afford,
My cred❜lous heart once leap'd at every word,
My glowing bofom throbb'd with thick-heav'd fighs,
And floods of rapture gufh'd into my eyes:
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