Gain on your purpos'd will. Nor in the bower, 975 Where woodbines flaunt, and rofes fhed a couch, While Evening draws her crimson curtains round, Trust your soft minutes with betraying man.
AND let th' afpiring youth beware of love, Of the smooth glance beware; for 'tis too late, 980 When on his heart the torrent-softness pours. Then wisdom proftrate lies, and fading fame Diffolves in air away; while the fond foul, Wrapt in gay vifions of unreal blifs, Still paints th' illufive form; the kindling grace; Th' inticing fmile; the modeft-feeming eye, Beneath whose beauteous beams, belying heaven, Lurk fearchlefs cunning, cruelty, and death: And ftill, falfe-warbling in his cheated ear, Her fyren voice, enchanting, draws him on To guileful fhores, and meads of fatal joy.
EVEN prefent, in the very lap of love Inglorious laid; while mufick flows around, Perfumes, and oils, and wine, and wanton hours;
Amid the roses fierce repentance rears
Her fnaky creft: a quick-returning pang
Shoots thro' the conscious heart; where honour ftill,
And great defign, against th' oppreffive load
Of luxury, by fits, impatient heave.
BUT abfent, what fantastic woes, arrous'd, 1000 Rage in each thought, by restless musing fed, Chill the warm cheek, and blast the bloom of life? Neglected Fortune flies; and fliding swift, Prone into ruin, fall his fcorn'd affairs.
"Tis nought but gloom around: The darken'd fun Lofes his light. The rofy-bofom'd Spring
To weeping Fancy pines; and yon bright arch,
Contracted, bends into a dusky vault.
All Nature fades extinct; and the alone
Heard, felt, and seen, poffeffes every thought, 1010
Fills every fenfe, and pants in every vein.
Books are but formal dulness, tedious friends;
And fad amid the social band he fits,
Lonely, and unattentive. From the tongue
Th' unfinish'd period falls: while borne away, 1015
On fwelling thought, his wafted spirit flies
To the vain bofom of his distant fair;
And leaves the semblance of a lover, fix'd
In melancholy fite, with head declin'd,
And love-dejected eyes. Sudden he starts,
Shook from his tender trance, and restless runs
To glimmering fhades, and sympathetic glooms;
Where the dun umbrage o'er the falling ftream,
Romantic, hangs; there thro' the penfive dusk
Strays, in heart-thrilling meditation loft,
Indulging all to love: or on the bank
Thrown, amid drooping lillies, fwells the breeze
With fighs unceasing, and the brook with tears.
Thus in foft anguish he confumes the day,
Nor quits his deep retirement, till the Moon
Peeps thro the chambers of the fleecy eaft,
Enlighten'd by degrees, and in her train
Leads on the gentle hours; then forth he walks,
Beneath the trembling languish of her beam,
With foften'd foul, and wooes the bird of eve
To mingle woes with his: or while the world
And all the fons of Care lie hufh'd in fleep,
Affociates with the midnight shadows drear;
And, fighing to the lonely taper, pours
His idly-tortur'd heart into the page,
Meant for the moving meffenger of love;
Where rapture burns on rapture, every line
With rifing frenzy fir'd. But if on bed
Delirious flung, fleep from his pillow flies.
All night he toffes, nor the balmy power
In any posture finds; till the
grey morn
Lifts her pale luftre on the paler wretch,
Exanimate by love: and then perhaps
Exhaufted Nature finks a while to reft,
Still interrupted by distracted dreams,
That o'er the fick imagination rife,
And in black colours paint the mimick scene.
Oft with th' enchantress of his foul he talks;
Sometimes in crouds diftrefs'd; or if retir'd
To fecret-winding flower-enwoven bowers,
Far from the dull impertinence of man,
Just as he, credulous, his endless cares
Begins to lose in blind oblivious love,
Snatch'd from her yielded hand, he knows not how,
Thro' forefts huge, and long untravel'd heaths 1060
With defolation brown, he wanders waste,
In night and tempeft wrapt; or fhrinks aghaft,
Back, from the bending precipice; or wades
The turbid ftream below, and ftrives to reach
The farther fhore; where fuccourlefs, and fad, 1065
She with extended arms his aid implores;
But strives in vain: borne by th' outragious flood
To distance down, he rides the ridgy wave,
Or whelm'd beneath the boiling eddy finks.
These are the charming agonies of love,
Whose misery delights. But thro' the heart
Should jealoufy its venom once diffuse,
"Tis then delightful misery no more,
But agony unmix'd, inceffant gall,
Corroding every thought, and blafting all
Love's paradife. Ye fairy prospects, then,
Ye beds of rofes, and ye bowers of joy,
Farewel! Ye gleamings of departed peace,
Shine out your laft! the yellow-tinging plague
Internal vifion taints, and in a night
Of livid, gloom imagination wraps.
Ah then instead of love-enliven'd cheeks,
Of funny features, and of ardent eyes
With flowing rapture bright, dark looks fucceed,
Suffus'd, and glaring with untender fire;
A clouded afpect, and a burning cheek,
Where the whole poifon'd foul, malignant, fits,
And frightens love away. Ten thousand fears
Invented wild, ten thousand frantic views
Of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms
For which he melts in fondness, eat him up
With fervent anguifh, and confuming rage.
In vain reproaches lend their idle aid,
Deceitful pride, and refolution frail,
Giving falfe
peace a moment. Fancy pours, Afresh, her beauties on his bufy thought,
Her first endearments, twining round the foul
With all the witchcraft of enfnaring love.
Strait the fierce storm involves his mind anew,
Flames thro' the nerves, and boils along the veins;
While anxious doubt distracts the tortur'd heart:
For even the fad affurance of his fears
Were peace to what he feels. Thus the warm youth,
Whom love deludes into his thorny wilds,
Thro' flowery-tempting paths, or leads a life
Of fever'd rapture, or of cruel care;
His brightest aims extinguish'd all, and all
His lively moments running down to waste.
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