Oh! the unhappy Joys which Love contains, How short the Pleasures, and how long the Pains! Curs’d be the treach’rous Hopes that drew me on, And made me fondly to my Ruin run. What I the Blessing of my Life design’d Is now become the Torment of my Mind: A Torment! which is equally as great As is his Absence that doth it create. Heav’ns! must this Absence then for ever last, This Absence! which does all my comfort blast? Must I no more enjoy the pleasing Light That charm’d my Heart with Rapture and Delight? Must I no more those lovely Eyes behold Which have so oft their Master’s Passion told? Nor was I wanting in the same intent; } A thousand times my Eyes in Flashes sent } The Dictates of my Heart, and shew’d you what they meant. } But now they must be other ways employ’d: When I reflect on what I have enjoy’d Tears of their own accord in Streams will flow, To think I ’m scorned, and left by faithless you. And yet my Passion does so far exceed } A vulgar Flame, that I with Pleasure bleed, } And doat upon the Torments which from you proceed. } From the first moment I beheld your Face, To you I dedicated all my Days: Your Eyes at first an easie Conquest gain’d, Which since they have but too too well maintain’d. Your Name each Hour I constantly repeat; But what’s (alas!) the Comfort which I meet? Nought but my wretched Fate’s too true Advice, Which whispers to me in such Words as these: Ah! Mariane, why do’st hope in vain To see thy lovely Fugitive again? The dear, false, cruel Man ’s for ever gone, And thou, unhappy thou! art left alone: Gone is the Tyrant, slighting all thy Charms, And longs to languish in another’s Arms. In vain you weep, in vain you sigh and mourn, For he will never, never more return. To fly from thee, he left his Downy Ease, And scorn’d the Dangers of the raging Seas. In France, dissolv’d in Pleasures, now he lies, And for new Beauties every moment dies; The Joys which once he with such Ardour sought } Are now (alas!) all vanish’d and forgot; } Nor art Thou ever present in his Thought.---- } But hold! my Passion hurries me too far, And makes me think you falser than you are. You’ve, sure, more Honour than to use me so For what I have endur’d and done for you, Forget me! ’tis impossible you shou’d; Nay, I believe you cannot if you wou’d. My Case is bad enough without that Curse, I need not find fresh Plagues to make it worse. And when I think with how much care you strove To let me see at first, your dawning Love; When I reflect upon the Bliss it brought, The Pleasure is too great to be forgot; And I shou’d think I were ungrateful grown, Should I not love you, tho’ by you undone.----