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For pity, thou that wiser art,
Whose thoughts lie wide of mine,
Let me alone with my own art,
And I'll ne'er envy thine.

No blame him, whoe'er blames my wit,
That seeks no higher prize,
Than in unenvied shades to sit,
And sing of Chloris' eyes.

[LANSDOWN.]

WHY, cruel creature, why so bent,

To vex a tender heart?

To gold and title you relent;

Love throws in vain his dart.

For

Let glitt'ring fops in courts be great,
pay let armies move:
Beauty should have no other bait,
But gentle vows and love.

If on those endless charms you lay
The value that's their due;

Kings are themselves too poor to pay;
A thousand worlds too few.

But if a passion without vice,
Without disguise or art,

Ah, Celia! if true love's your price,
Behold it in my heart.

[CARTER.]

FOREVER, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love;

And when we meet a mutual heart,
Come in between and bid us part?

Bid us sigh on from day to day,
And wish, and wish the soul away,
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the life of life is gone ?

But busy, busy still art thou,
To bind the loveless joyless vow,
The heart from pleasure to delude,
And join the gentle to the rude.

For once, O Fortune, hear my pray'r, And I absolve thy future care;

All other wishes I resign,

Make but the dear Amanda mine.

YOUNG I am, and yet unskill'd
How to make a lover yield;
How to keep, and how to gain,
When to love, and when to feign.

Take me, take me some of you
While I yet am young and true;
Ere I can my soul disguise,

Heave my breasts, and roll my eyes.

Stay not till I learn the way
How to lie and to betray;
He that has me first, is blest,
For I may deceive the rest.

Could I find a blooming youth
Full of love, and full of truth,
Brisk, and of a janty mien,
I should long to be fifteen.

SAY not, Olinda, I despise

The faded glories of your face, The languish'd vigour of your eyes, And that once only-lov'd embrace.

In vain, in vain, my constant heart
On aged wings, attempts to meet,
With wonted speed, those flames you dart,
It faints, and flutters at your feet,

I blame not your decay of power,
You may have pointed beauties still,
Tho' me, alas! they wound no more;
You cannot hurt what cannot feel.

On youthful climes your beams display
There you may cherish with your heat,
And rise the sun to gild their day,
To me, benighted, when you set.

DEAR Chloe, while thus beyond measure
You treat me with doubts and disdain ;
You rob all your youth of its pleasure,
And hoard up an old age of pain:
Your maxim that love is still founded
On charms that will quickly decay,
You will find to be very ill-grounded
When once you its dictates obey.

The passion from beauty first drawn
Your kindness will vastly improve;
Soft looks and gay smiles are the dawn,
Fruition's the sunshine of love :

And though the bright beams of your eyes,
Should be clouded, that now are so gay,
And darkness obscure all the skies,

We ne'er can forget it was day.

Old Darby with Joan by his side

You oft have regarded with wonder;

He is dropsical, she is sore-ey'd,
Yet they're ever uneasy asunder;
Together they totter about

And sit in the sun at the door,

And at night when old Darby's pot's out, His Joan will not smoke a whiff more.

No beauty or wit they possess

Their several failings to smother,

Then what are the charms, can you guess, That make them so fond of each other? 'Tis the pleasing remembrance of youth, The endearments that love did bestow, The thoughts of past pleasure and truth,, The best of all blessings below.

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