Had you but lov’d so truly as you said, You never from me in such haste had fled. But you! how easie did you go away! Nay, e’en seem’d pleas’d you cou’d no longer stay The few Excuses that you made to go, How slight they were! but any thing wou’d do, To fly from one already nauseous grown, That lov’d you but too well, and trusted you too soon.---- ‘My Friends (you cry) and Honour call me hence, ‘And I must now be gone, to serve my Prince,’ Why was not that nice Honour thought on then, When you deluded me to give up mine? This was all Fiction, which you did devise To seem less guilty, and to blind my Eyes. But, ah! should I have too much Bliss enjoy’d, Might I with you have liv’d, with you have dy’d.---- My only Comfort is, I ’ve been to you, Spite of this Absence, constant, just, and true; And can you then, who all my Thoughts controul, And know the earnest Secrets of my Soul, Can you be so regardless of my Pray’r, T’ abandon me for ever to Despair? You see I ’m mad, but yet I ’ll not complain, } For I ’m so us’d to suffer your Disdain, } That now I find a Pleasure in my Pain.---- } But what ’s my greatest Curse, those things no more Can please me now, which I have lik’d before. My Friends, Relations, and my Convent too, } Are odious all, and all detested grow, } Nay, ev’ry thing that not relates to you. } The flitting Hours of each succeeding Day, If not on you bestow’d, I think they ’re thrown away.---- So great ’s my Love, and with such pow’r does rule, It takes up the whole Business of my Soul. Why then t’ expel this Passion shou’d I strive? } For ’tis impossible I shou’d survive } This restless state, and with Indiff’rence live. } So much I now am chang’d from what I was, That all observe and wonder what ’s the Cause: My Mother chides, and urges me to tell What ’tis creates my Grief, and what I ail, I hardly know what Answers I have made, But I believe that I have all betray’d. The most severe and hardest Hearts relent, And are with Pity touch’d at my Complaint. To cruel Thee alone I sigh in vain, For all the World beside compassionates my Pain. ’Tis seldom that you write, and when you do, Your Lukewarmness each Line does plainly shew. ’Tis all but Repetition and Constraint, Dull is each Word, and each Expression faint.---- My kind Companion took me t’ other day To the Balcon’ that looks tow’rds Mertola; The Sight so struck my Heart that, while I stood, Strait from my Eyes a briny Deluge flow’d. I then return’d, and strove to ease my Care, For all my Thoughts brought nothing but Despair. What others do to help me in my Grief, Adds only to my Pains, and brings me no Relief.----