If e'er my breast a guilty flame receives,

Or covets joys, but what thy presence gives;
May ev'ry injur'd pow'r affert thy cause,

20

And Love avenge his violated laws :
While cruel beasts of prey infeft the plain,
And tempefts rage upon the faithless main:
While fighs and tears shall liftning virgins move,
So long, ye powers, will fond Neæra love.

Ah faithless charmer, lovely perjur'd maid!
Are thus my vows, and generous flame repaid?
Repeated flights I have too tamely bore,
Still doated on, and still been wrong'd the more.
Why do I listen to that Syren's voice,

Love ev'n thy crimes, and fly to guilty joys! 30 Thy fatal eyes my best resolves betray,

My fury melts in soft defires away:

Each look, each glance, for all thy crimes attone,
Elude my rage, and I'm again undone.

But if my injur❜d foul dares yet be brave,
Unless I'm fond of fhame, confirm'd a flave,
I will be deaf to that enchanting tongue,
Nor on thy beauties gaze away my wrong.
At length I'll loath each prostituted grace,
Nor court the leavings of a cloy'd embrace;
But fhow, with manly rage, my foul's above
The cold returns of thy exhaufted love.
Then thou fhalt juftly mourn at my disdain,
Find all thy arts, and all thy charms in vain :

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40

Shalt mourn, whilst I, with nobler flames, pursue Some nymph as fair, tho' not unjust, as you; Whose wit, and beauty, fhall like thine excel, But far furpass in truth, and loving well.

But wretched thou, who-e'er my rival art, That fondly boasts an empire o'er her heart; 50 Thou that enjoy'ft the fair inconstant prize, And vainly triumph'st with my victories; Unenvy'd now, o'er all her beauties rove, Enjoy thy ruin, and Neæra's love:

Tho' wealth and honours grace thy nobler birth, To bribe her love, and fix a wand'ring faith; 56 Tho' ev'ry grace, and ev'ry virtue join,

T'inrich thy mind, and make thy form divine;
Yet bleft with endless charms, too foon you'll prove
The treacheries of falfe Neæra's love.

Loft, and abandon'd by th' ungrateful fair,
Like me you'll love, be injur'd, and despair.
When left th' unhappy object of her scorn,
Then fhall I fmile to fee the victor mourn,

Laugh at thy fate, and triumph in my turn.

60

}

TO A CANDLE.

ELEGY.

BY WILLIAM CONGREVE, ESQ.*

deftruction turn,

5

THOU watchful taper, by whose filent light
I lonely pass the melancholly night;
Thou faithful witness of my fecret pain,
To whom alone I venture to complain;
O learn with me, my hopeless love to moan;
Commiferate a life fo like thy own.
Like thine, my flames to my
Wafting that heart by which fupply'd they burn.
Like thine, my joy and fuffering they display;
At once are figns of life, and symptoms of decay.
And as thy fearful flames the day decline,
And only during night presume to shine;
Their humble rays not daring to afpire
Before the fun, the fountain of their fire:
So mine, with confcious fhame, and equal awe,
To fhades obfcure and folitude withdraw;
Nor dare their light before her eyes disclose,
From whose bright beams their being first arose.

Born 1672; dyed 1729.

16

HORACE, BOOK II. ODE IV. IMITATID.

Do not, most fragrant earl, disclaim
Thy bright, thy reputable flame,
To Bracegirdle the brown;
But publickly espouse the dame,

And fay G― d― the town.

II.

Full many heroes, fierce and keen,
With drabs have deeply smitten been,
Although right good commanders;

5

Some who with you have Hounslow seen,
And fome who've been in Flanders. 10

· Born 1673; dyed 1718.

III.

Did not bafe Greber's Pegg* inflame
The fober earl of Nottingham,

Of fober fire defcended?

That careless of his foul and fame,

To play-houses he nightly came,

And left church undefended.

IV.

The monarch who of France is hight,
Who rules the roft with matchless might,
Since William went to heaven;

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Loves Maintenon, his lady bright,

20

Who was but Scarron's leaving.

V.

Tho' thy dear's father kept an inn,
At grifly head of Saracen,

For carriers at Northampton;
Yet fhe might come of gentler kin,

Than e'er that father dreamt on.

VI.

Of proffers large her choice had fhe,
Of jewels, plate, and land in fee,

Which the with scorn rejected:

And can a nymph so virtuous be

Of base-born blood fufpected?

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30

* Signiora Francesca Margareta' de l'Epine,' an Italian fangftrefs.