Nets, of passion's finest thread,
Snaring poems will be spread,
All to catch thy maidenhead.

Then, beware! for those that cure

Love's disease, themselves endure
For reward a calenture.

Rather let the lover pine,

Than his pale cheek should assign
A perpetual blush to thine.

BOLDNESS IN LOVE.

MARK how the bashful morn in vain
Courts the amorous marigold
With sighing blasts, and weeping rain,
Yet she refuses to unfold.

But, when the planet of the day
Approacheth with his powerful ray,
Then she spreads, then she receives
His warmer beams into her virgin leaves.

So shalt thou thrive in love, fond boy!
If thy tears and sighs discover
Thy grief, thou never shalt enjoy
The just reward of a bold lover.

But, when with moving accents, thou
Shalt constant faith and service vow,
Thy Celia shall receive those charms

With open ears, and with unfolded arms.

UNGRATEFUL BEAUTY THREATENED.

KNOW, Celia (since thou art so proud) 'Twas I that gave thee thy renown; Thou hadst, in the forgotten crowd

Of common beauties, liv'd unknown, Had not my verse exhal'd thy name, And with it impt the wings of fame.

That killing power is none of thine,
I gave it to thy voice and eyes;
Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine;

Thou art my star, shin'st in my skies: Then dart not from thy borrow'd sphere Lightning on him that fix'd thee there.

Tempt me with such affrights no more,
Lest what I made I uncreate,

Let fools thy mystic forms adore,

I'll know thee in thy mortal state.

Wise poets, that wrapp'd truth in tales,
Knew her themselves through all her veils.

SONG.

To one, who, when I praised my Mistress' beauty, said I was blind.

WONDER not though I am blind,
For you must be

Dark in your eyes, or in your mind,
If, when you see

Her face, you prove not blind, like me!
If the powerful beams that fly

And those amorous sweets that lie
Scatter'd in each neighbouring part,
Find a passage to your heart;

Then, you'll confess your mortal sight
Too weak for such a glorious light.
For if her graces you discover,
You grow, like me, a dazzled lover:
But, if those beauties you not spy,
Then are you blinder far than I.

SONG.

Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose;

For, in your beauty's orient deep, These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For, in pure love, heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more, whither doth haste
The nightingale, when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.

Ask me no more where those stars light That downwards fall in dead of night; For in your eyes they sit, and there Fixed become as in their sphere.

Ask me no more, if east or west
The phoenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragant bosom dies.

DIALOGUE.

[From a MS. in the possession of Mr. Malone.]

TELL me, Utrechia, since my fate,

And thy more powerful form, decrees

My heart an immolation at thy shrine,
Where I am only to incline-

How I must love, and at what rate;

By what despairs, and what degrees,

I may my hopes enlarge, or my desires confine?

"First, when thy flames begin,

"See they burn all within;

"And so, as lookers-on may not descry "Smoke in a sigh, or sparkles in an eye.

"I would have had my love a good while there, "Ere thine own heart had been aware:

"And I myself would chuse to know it,

"First, by thy care and cunning not to show it."

When my love is, your own way, thus betray'd, Must it still be afraid?

May it not be sharp-sighted then, as well,

And see, you know, that which it durst not tell,