CXI.

JOHN DRYDEN, 1631-1700.

SONG TO A FAIR YOUNG LADY, GOING

OUT OF TOWN IN THE SPRING.

A

SK not the cause why sullen spring

So long delays her flowers to bear;

Why warbling birds forget to sing,
And winter storms invert the year:
Chloris is gone; and fate provides
To make it spring, where she resides.

Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;

She cast not back a pitying eye:
But left her lover in despair,

To sigh, to languish, and to die:
Ah! how can those fair eyes endure
To give the wounds they will not cure.

Great god of love, why hast thou made

A face that can all hearts command,
That all religions can invade,

And change the laws of every land?
Where thou hadst placed such power before,
Thou should'st have made her mercy more.

When Chloris to the temple comes,

Adoring crowds before her fall; She can restore the dead from tombs, And every life but mine recall. I only am by Love designed To be the victim for mankind.

CXII

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY, 1639-1701.

SONG.

PHILLIS

HILLIS is my only joy,

Faithless as the winds or seas;

Sometimes coming, sometimes coy,

Yet she never fails to please;

If with a frown

I am cast down,

Phillis smiling,

And beguiling,

Makes me happier than before.

Though, alas! too late I find,

Nothing can her fancy fix;

Yet the moment she is kind,
I forgive her all her tricks;
Which, though I see,

I can't get free;

She deceiving,

I believing;

What need lovers wish for more?

CXIII.

A

VICTORIA'S SONG.

H Chloris! that I now could sit

As unconcerned, as when

Your infant beauty could beget

No pleasure nor no pain.

When I the dawn used to admire,
And praised the coming day,
I little thought the growing fire
Must take my rest away.

Your charms in harmless childhood lay,
Like metals in the mine:

Age from no face took more away,

Than youth concealed in thine.

But as your charms insensibly
To their perfection prest,
Fond love as unperceived did fly,
And in my bosom rest.

My passion with your beauty grew,

And Cupid at my heart,

Still as his mother favoured you,

Threw a new flaming dart.

Each gloried in their wanton part :

To make a lover he

Employed the utmost of his art,
To make a beauty she.

Though now I slowly bend to love, Uncertain of my fate,

If your fair self my chains approve, I shall my freedom hate.

Lovers, like dying men, may well At first disordered be;

Since none alive can truly tell

What fortune they must see.