Be gone! and let the Golden age again,
Assume its Glorious Reign;
Let the young wishing Maid confess,
What all your Arts would keep conceal’d:
The Mystery will be reveal’d,
And she in vain denies, whilst we can guess,
She only shows the Jilt to teach man how,
To turn the false Artillery on the Cunning Foe.
Thou empty Vision hence, be gone,
And let the peaceful _Swain_ love on;
The swift pac’d hours of life soon steal away:
Stint not, yee Gods, his short liv’d Joy.
The Spring decays, but when the Winter’s gone,
The Trees and Flowers a new comes on;
The Sun may set, but when the night is fled,
And gloomy darkness does retire,
He rises from his Watry Bed:
All Glorious, Gay, all drest in Amorous Fire.
But _Sylvia_ when your Beauties fade,
When the fresh Roses on your Cheeks shall die
Like Flowers that wither in the Shade,
Eternally they will forgotten lye, }
And no kind Spring their sweetness will supply. }
When Snow shall on those lovely Tresses lye. }
And your fair Eyes no more shall give us pain,
But shoot their pointless Darts in vain.
What will your duller honour signifie?
Go boast it then! and see what numerous Store
Of Lovers will your Ruin’d Shrine Adore.
Then let us, _Sylvia_, yet be wise,
And the Gay hasty minutes prize:
The Sun and Spring receive but our short Light,
Once sett, a sleep brings an Eternal Night.
A _Farewel to_ Celladon, _On his Going into_ Ireland.
Pindarick.
Farewell the Great, the Brave and Good,
By all admir’d and understood;
For all thy vertues so extensive are,
Writ in so noble and so plain a Character,
That they instruct humanity what to do,
How to reward and imitate ‘em too,
The mighty _Cesar_ found and knew,
The Value of a Swain so true:
And early call’d the Industrious Youth from Groves
Where unambitiously he lay,
And knew no greater Joyes, nor Power then Loves;
Which all the day
The careless and delighted _Celladon_ Improves;
So the first man in Paradice was laid,
So blest beneath his own dear fragrant shade,
Till false Ambition made him range,
So the Almighty call’d him forth,
And though for Empire he did _Eden_ change;
Less Charming ‘twas, and far less worth.
II.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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