[Page 184]

TO A LOVER.

1 WHY didst thou rase such woeful wayle,
2 And waste in briny tears thyne days;
3 Cause shee, that wont to flout and rayl,
4 At last gave proof of woman's waies?
5 Shee did, in soothe, display the hearte
6 That mought have wroughte thee greater smarte.
7 Why thank her then, not weepe nor mone,
8 Let others guard their careless hearte;
9 And praise the day that thus made knowne
10 The faithless hold on woman's art.
11 Their lips can gloze and gain suche roote,
12 That gentle youthe hathe hope of fruite.
13 But, ere the blossom faire dothe rise,
14 To shoot its sweetness o'er the taste,
15 Creepeth disdain in canker-wise,
16 And chilling scorne the fruite dothe blaste.
17 There is no hope of all our toyl,
18 There is no fruit from such a soil.
[Page 185]
19 Give o'er thy playnt, the danger's o'er,
20 Shee might have poyson'd all thyne lyfe;
21 Such wayward mynde had bred thee more
22 Of sorrowe, had she prov'd a wyfe.
23 Leave her to meet all hopeless meed,
24 And bless thyself that so art freed.
25 No youthe shall sue suche one to winne,
26 Unmark'd by all the shyning fair,
27 Save for her pride and scorn, such sinne
28 As hearts of love can never bear;
29 Like leafless plant in blasted shade,
30 So liveth shee a barren mayde,

Text

  • TEI/XML [chunk] (XML - 63K / ZIP - 7.1K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 1.2K / ZIP - 845 )

Facsimile (Source Edition)

(Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [(OC) 280 o.791].)

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - 2.9M)

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): TO A LOVER.
Themes: sex; relations between the sexes; love; grief; sadness; melancholy
Genres: lyric; imitation
References: DMI 32101

Text view / Document view

Source edition

Pearch, G. A collection of poems in four volumes. By several hands. Vol. IV. [The second edition]. London: printed for G. Pearch, 1770, pp. 184-185. 4v. ; 8⁰. (ESTC T116245; DMI 1137; OTA K093079.004) (Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [(OC) 280 o.791].)

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.