On what shepherds you have smil'd, What we shall hereafter do : For the joys we now may prove On a Girdle. THAT which her slender waist confin'd It was my heaven's extremest sphere, The pale which held that lovely deer: My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, Did all within this circle move! A narrow compass! and yet there To the mutable Fair. HERE, Cælia, for thy sake I part The passion that I had for thee, Fool that I was! so much to prize Decline our force, and mock our skill, Now will I wander through the air, Mount, make a stoop at every fair, And, with a fancy unconfin'd, As lawless as the sea or wind, Pursue you wheresoe'er you fly, And with your various thoughts comply. The formal stars do travel so As we their names and courses know; Would think them govern'd by our books. To any art: the motion us'd By those free vapours is so light, So frequent, that the conquer'd sight Despairs to find the rules that guide Such was that image, so it smil'd With seeming kindness, which beguil'd Your Thyrsis lately, when he thought He had his fleeting Cælia caught; 'Twas shap'd like her, but for the fair He fill'd his arms with yielding air. A fate for which he grieves the less, Because the gods had like success. For in their story, one, we see, Pursues a nymph, and takes a tree. A second with a lover's haste Soon overtakes whom he had chas'd; But she that did a virgin seem, Possess'd, appears a wandering stream. For his supposed love, a third Lays greedy hold upon a bird, And stands amaz'd to find his dear A wild inhabitant of th' air. To these old tales such nymphs as you Give credit, and still make them new. The amorous now like wonders find In the swift changes of your mind. But, Cælia, if you apprehend And then he swears he'll not complain. Is all the pleasure lovers know; Who, like good falconers, take delight To a Lady in a Garden. SEES not my love how Time resumes Had Helen, or th' Egyptian queen, Should some malignant planet bring A barren drought or ceaseless shower Upon the autumn or the spring, And spare us neither fruit nor flower; Could the resolve of love's neglect Of English Verse. POETS may boast, as safely vain, Their works shall with the world remain : Both bound together, live or die, The verses and the prophecy. But who can hope his lines should long When architects have done their part, Soon brings a well-built palace down. |