[Page 318]

The RAKE.

Video meliora proboque,
Deteriora sequor.
HOR.
1 AN open heart, a generous mind,
2 But passion's slave, and wild as wind:
[Page 319]
3 In theory, a judge of right;
4 Tho' banish'd from its practice quite:
5 So loose, so prostitute of soul,
6 His nobler wit becomes the tool
7 Of every importuning fool:
8 A thousand virtues misapply'd;
9 While reason floats on passion's tide:
10 The ruin of the chaste and fair;
11 The parent's curse, the virgin's snare:
12 Whose false example leads astray
13 The young, the thoughtless, and the gay:
14 Yet, left alone to cooler thought,
15 He knows, he sees, he feels his fault;
16 He knows his fault, he feels, he views,
17 Detesting what he most pursues:
18 His judgment tells him, all his gains
19 For fleeting joys, are lasting pains:
20 Reason with appetite contending,
21 Repenting still, and still offending:
22 Abuser of the gifts of nature,
23 A wretched, self-condemning creature,
24 He passes o'er life's ill-trod stage;
25 And dies, in youth, the prey of age!
26 The scorn, the pity of the wise,
27 Who love, lament him and despise!

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Title (in Source Edition): The RAKE.
Author: Anonymous
Themes: reason; sex; relations between the sexes
Genres:
References: DMI 26705

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Source edition

Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764. A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. IV. London: printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1763 [1st ed. 1758], pp. 318-319. 6v.: music; 8⁰. (ESTC T131163; OTA K104099.004) (Page images digitized by the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive from a copy in the archive's library.)

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