The lamb the flowery thyme devours,
The dam the tender kid pursues,
Sweet Philomel, in fhady bowers

Of verdant fpring her note renews;
All follow what they most admire,
As I purfue my fouls defire.

Nature muft change her beauteous face,
And vary as the seasons rife ;
As winter to the fpring gives place,
Summer th' approach of autumn flies:
No change on love the feafons bring,
Love only knows perpetual fpring.

Devouring time, with stealing pace,

Makes lofty oaks and cedars bow;
And marble tow'rs, and gates of brass,
In his rude march he levels low:
But time, deftroying far and wide,
Love from the foul can ne'er divide.

Death only, with his cruel dart,

The gentle godhead can remove; And drive him from the bleeding heart To mingle with the blefs'd above, Where, known to all his kindred train, He finds a lafting reft from pain.

Love, and his fifter fair, the foul,

Twin-born, from heaven together came :

Love will the universe controul,

When dying feafons lofe their name;

Divine abodes fhall own his pow'r,
When time and death fhall be no more.

SONG II.

BY DR.

Y

PARNEL L.

My days have been fo wondrous free,

The little birds that fly,

With careless ease from tree to tree,
Were but as blefs'd as I.

174

With all of nature, all of art,
Affift the dear defign;

O teach a young unpractis'd heart
To make her ever mine.

The very thought of change I hate,
As much as of defpair;
Nor ever covet to be great,
Unless it be for her.

"Tis true, the paffion in my mind
Is mix'd with foft diftrefs;
Yet while the fair I love is kind,
I cannot wish it lefs.

SONG III.

BY MRS. PILKINGTON.

TELLA, darling of the mufes,
Fairer than the blooming fpring;

Sweetest theme the poet chuses,
When of thee he strives to fing.

While my foul with wonder traces

All thy charms of face and mind,
All the beauties, all the graces

Of thy fex in thee I find.

Love, and joy, and admiration,

In my breaft alternate rise ;
Words no more can paint my paffion,
Than the pencil can thy eyes.

Lavish nature thee adorning,

O'er thy lips and cheeks hath fpread Colours that might shame the morning, Smiling with celestial red.

Would the gods, in bleft condition,
Our requests indulgent view,
Sure each mortals first petition
Would be to resemble you.

SONG IV.

BY LORD

W

LYTTELTON*,

HEN Delia on the plain appears, Aw'd by a thousand tender fears, I would approach, but dare not move: Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

Whene'er she speaks, my ravish'd ear
No other voice but hers can hear;
No other wit but hers approve :
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

*« Written in the year 1732."

If

If fhe fome other youth commend,
Though I was once his fondeft friend,
His inftant enemy I prove:

Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

When fhe is abfent, I no more
Delight in all that pleas'd before,
The cleareft fpring, the fhadieft grove:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

When fond of power, of beauty vain,
Her nets fhe fpread for every fwain,
I ftrove to hate, but vainly ftrove:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

A

SONG V.

S he lay in the plain, his arm under his head,
And his flock feeding by, the fond Celadon faid:
If love's a sweet paffion, why does it torment?
If a bitter (faid he) whence are lovers content?

Since I fuffer with pleafure, why fhould I complain?
Or grieve at my fate, when I know 'tis in vain ?
Yet fo pleafing the pain is, fo foft is the dart,
That at once it both wounds me, and tickles my

heart.

To myself I figh often without knowing why;
And when absent from Phyllis methinks I could die :
But oh! what a pleasure ftill follows my pain;
When kind fortune does help me to fee her again.

In