[Page 66][Page 68]
[SONG] I.
1 COME here fond youth, whoe'er thou be,
2 That boasts to love as well as me;
3 And if thy breast have felt so wide a wound,
4 Come hither and thy flame approve;
5 I'll teach thee what it is to love,
6 And by what marks true passion may be found.
7 It is to be all bath'd in tears;
8 To live upon a smile for years;
9 To lie whole ages at a beauty's feet:
[Page 67]10 To kneel, to languish and implore;
11 And still tho' she disdain, adore:
12 It is to do all this, and think thy sufferings sweet.
13 It is to gaze upon her eyes
14 With eager joy and fond surprise;
15 Yet temper'd with such chaste and awful fear
16 As wretches feel who wait their doom;
17 Nor must one ruder thought presume
18 Tho' but in whispers breath'd, to meet her ear.
19 It is to hope, tho' hope were lost;
20 Tho' heaven and earth thy passion crost;
21 Tho' she were bright as sainted queens above,
22 And thou the least and meanest swain
23 That folds his flock upon the plain,
24 Yet if thou dar'st not hope, thou dost not love.
25 It is to quench thy joy in tears;
26 To nurse strange doubts and groundless fears:
27 If pangs of jealousy thou hast not prov'd,
28 Tho' she were fonder and more true
29 Than any nymph old poets drew,
30 Oh never dream again that thou hast lov'd.
31 If when the darling maid is gone,
32 Thou dost not seek to be alone,
33 Wrapt in a pleasing trance of tender woe;
34 And muse, and fold thy languid arms,
35 Feeding thy fancy on her charms,
36 Thou dost not love, for love is nourish'd so.
37 If any hopes thy bosom share
38 But those which love has planted there,
39 Or any cares but his thy breast enthrall,
[Page 69]40 Thou never yet his power hast known;
41 Love sits on a despotic throne,
42 And reigns a tyrant, if he reigns at all.
43 Now if thou art so lost a thing,
44 Here all thy tender sorrows bring,
45 And prove whose patience longest can endure:
46 We'll strive whose fancy shall be lost
47 In dreams of fondest passion most;
48 For if thou thus hast lov'd, oh! never hope a cure.
About this text
Themes:
love; grief; sadness; melancholy; women; female character
Genres:
song
References:
DMI 36942
Text view / Document view
Source edition
Barbauld, Mrs. (Anna Letitia), 1743-1825. Poems. London: printed for Joseph Johnson, 1773, pp. 66-69. vi,138p. ; 4⁰. (ESTC T236; OTA K019955.000) (Page images digitized by New York Public Library.)
Editorial principles
The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.
Other works by Anna Laetitia Barbauld (née Aikin)
- An ADDRESS to the DEITY. ()
- CHARACTERS. ()
- CORSICA. ()
- DELIA, AN ELEGY. ()
- The GROANS of the TANKARD. ()
- HYMN I. ()
- HYMN II. ()
- HYMN III. For EASTER-SUNDAY. ()
- HYMN IV. ()
- HYMN to CONTENT. ()
- HYMN V. ()
- The INVITATION: To MISS B—. ()
- The MOUSE's PETITION, Found in the TRAP where he had been confin'd all Night. ()
- ODE to SPRING. ()
- On a LADY's WRITING. ()
- ON THE Backwardness of the SPRING 1771. ()
- ON THE DEATH OF MRS. JENNINGS. ()
- THE ORIGIN OF SONG-WRITING. ()
- OVID to his WIFE: Imitated from different Parts of his TRISTIA. ()
- SONG II. ()
- SONG III. ()
- SONG IV. ()
- SONG V. ()
- SONG VI. ()
- A Summer Evening's Meditation. ()
- To a LADY, With some painted FLOWERS. ()
- To MISS R—, On her Attendance on her Mother at BUXTON. ()
- To MRS. P—, With some Drawings of BIRDS and INSECTS. ()
- To WISDOM. ()
- VERSES on MRS. ROWE. ()
- VERSES written in an Alcove. ()