Fatal the wolves to trembling flocks,
Fierce 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 flower;
Who ever gaz'd on beauteous eyes
That tasted quiet more?
How faithless is the lover's joy!
How constant is their care!
The kind with falsehood do destroy,
The cruel with despair.
WHEN your beauty appears
In its graces and airs,
All bright as an angel new dropt from the sky;
At distance I gaze, and am aw'd by my fears,
So strangely you dazzle my eye!
But when without art,
Your kind thoughts you impart,
When your love runs in blushes thro' every vein; When it darts from your eyes, when it pants in your Then I know you're a woman again. [heart,
There's passion and pride
In our sex, she replied,
And thus, might I gratify both, would I do; Still an angel appear to each lover beside, But yet be a woman to you,
As Amoret with Phillis sat
One evening on the plain,
And saw the gentle Strephon wait
To tell the nymph his pain,
The threat'ning danger to remove,
She whisper'd in her ear,
Ah Phillis! if you would not love,
That shepherd do not hear.
None ever had so strange an art
His passion to convey
Into a list❜ning virgin's heart,
And steal her soul away.
Fly, fly betimes for fear you give
Occasion for your fate,
In vain, said she, in vain I strive
Alas! 'tis now too late."
N love be controll'd by advice,
Can madness and reason agree?
O Molly, who'd ever be wise,
If madness is loving of thee?
Let sages pretend to despise
The joys they want spirits to taste,
Let us seize old time as he flies,
And the blessings of life while they last.
Dull wisdom but adds to our cares;
Brisk love will improve ev'ry joy,
Too soon we may meet with gray hairs,
Too late may repent being coy.
Then, Molly, for what should we stay
Till our best blood begins to run cold?
Our youth we can have but to day,
We may always find time to grow old.
MORTALS, learn your lives to measure
Not by length of time, but pleasure;
Now the hours invite, comply;
While you idly pause, they fly:
Blest, a nimble pace they keep,
But in torment, then they creep.
* It has been said that this song was written for the once well known Lady Vane.
Mortals, learn your lives to measure
Not by length of time, but pleasure;
Soon your spring must have a fall;
Losing youth, is losing all :
Then you'll ask, but none will give,
And may linger, but not live.
BID
ID me, when forty winters more
Have furrow'd deep my pallid brow,
When from my head, a scanty store,
Lankly the wither'd tresses flow;
When the warm tide, that bold and strong
Now rolls impetuous on and free,
Languid and slow scarce creeps along,
Then bid me court sobriety.
Nature, who form'd the varied scene
Of rage and calm, of frost and fire,
Unerring guide, could only mean,
That age should reason, youth desire.
Shall then that rebel man, presume
(Inverting nature's law) to seize
The dues of age in youth's high bloom,
And join impossibilities?
No-let me waste the frolic May
In wanton joys and wild excess,
In revel sport and laughter gay
And mirth, and rosy chearfulness;
Woman, the soul of all delights,
And wine, the aid of love, be near;
All charms me that to joy incites,
And every she that's kind is fair.
"Tis time lost to reprove me;
Pursue thou thine, I have my end,
So Chloris only love me.
Tell me not others' flocks are full,
Mine poor, let them despise me,
Who more abound in milk and wool,
So Chloris only prize me.
Tire others' easier ears with these
Unappertaining stories;
He never feels the world's disease
Who cares not for her glories.
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