THE LOSS.
1 Yet ere I go,
Disdainful Beauty, thou shalt be
So wretched as to know
What joys thou fling'st away with me.
2 A faith so bright,
As Time or Fortune could not rust;
So firm, that lovers might
Have read thy story in my dust,
3 And crowned thy name
With laurel verdant as thy youth,
Whilst the shrill voice of Fame
Spread wide thy beauty and my truth.
4 This thou hast lost,
For all true lovers, when they find
That my just aims were crossed,
Will speak thee lighter than the wind.
5 And none will lay
Any oblation on thy shrine,
But such as would betray
Thy faith to faiths as false as thine.
6 Yet, if thou choose
On such thy freedom to bestow,
Affection may excuse,
For love from sympathy doth flow.
NOTE ON ANACREON.
Let's not rhyme the hours away;
Friends! we must no longer play:
Brisk Lyaeus--see!--invites
To more ravishing delights.
Let's give o'er this fool Apollo,
Nor his fiddle longer follow:
Fie upon his forked hill,
With his fiddlestick and quill;
And the Muses, though they're gamesome,
They are neither young nor handsome;
And their freaks in sober sadness
Are a mere poetic madness:
Pegasus is but a horse;
He that follows him is worse.
See, the rain soaks to the skin,
Make it rain as well within.
Wine, my boy; we'll sing and laugh,
All night revel, rant, and quaff;
Till the morn, stealing behind us,
At the table sleepless find us.
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