You have been up long enough; and _Cupid_, who takes care of your
Health, tells you, ‘tis time for you to go to bed. Perhaps you may not
sleep as soon as you are laid, and possibly you may pass an Hour in
Bed, before you shut your Eyes. In this impossibility of sleeping, I
think it very proper for you to imagine what I am doing where I am.
Let your Fancy take a little Journey then, invisible, to observe my
Actions and my Conduct. You will find me sitting alone in my Cabinet
(for I am one that do not love to go to bed early) and will find me
very uneasy and pensive, pleas’d with none of those things that so
well entertain others. I shun all Conversation, as far as Civility
will allow, and find no Satisfaction like being alone, where my
Soul may, without interruption, converse with _Damon_. I sigh, and
sometimes you will see my Cheeks wet with Tears, that insensibly
glide down at a thousand Thoughts that present themselves soft and
afflicting. I partake of all your Inquietude. On other things I
think with indifference, if ever my Thoughts do stray from the more
agreeable Object. I find, however, a little Sweetness in this Thought,
that, during my Absence, your Heart thinks of me, when mine sighs
for you. Perhaps I am mistaken, and that at the same time that you
are the Entertainment of all my Thoughts, I am no more in yours; and
perhaps you are thinking of those things that immortalize the Young
and Brave, either by those Glories the Muses flatter you with, or
that of _Bellona_, and the God of War; and serving now a Monarch,
whose glorious Acts in Arms has out-gone all the feign’d and real
Heroes of any Age, who has, himself, out-done whatever History can
produce of great and brave, and set so illustrious an Example to the
Under-World, that it is not impossible, as much a Lover as you are,
but you are thinking now how to render your self worthy the Glory of
such a God-like Master, by projecting a thousand things of Gallantry
and Danger. And tho’, I confess, such Thoughts are proper for your
Youth, your Quality, and the Place you have the honour to hold under
our Sovereign, yet let me tell you, _Damon_, you will not be without
Inquietude, if you think of either being a delicate Poet, or a brave
Warrior; for _Love_ will still interrupt your Glory, however you may
think to divert him either by writing or fighting. And you ought to
remember these Verses:
Love and Glory.
_Beneath the kind protecting Laurel’s shade,_
_For sighing Lovers, and for Warriors made,_
_The soft_ Adonis, _and rough_ Mars _were laid._
_Both were design’d to take their Rest;_
_But_ Love _the gentle Boy opprest,_
_And false Alarms shook the stern Heroe’s Breast._
_This thinks to soften all his Toils of War,_
_In the dear Arms of the obliging Fair;_
_And that, by Hunting, to divert his Care._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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