Damon, if you'd have me true,
Be you my Precedent and Guide:
Example sooner we pursue,
Than the dull Dictates of our Pride.
Precepts of Virtue are too weak an Aim:
'Tis Demonstration that can best reclaim.
Shew me the Path you'd have me go;
With such a Guide I cannot stray:
What you approve, whate'er you do,
It is but just I bend that way.
If true, my Honour favours your Design;
If false, Revenge is the result of mine.
A Lover true, a Maid sincere,
Are to be priz'd as things divine:
'Tis Justice makes the Blessing dear,
Justice of Love without Design.
And she that reigns not in a Heart alone,
Is never safe, or easy, on her Throne.
FOUR o'CLOCK.
General Conversation.
In this Visiting-Hour, many People will happen to meet at one and the same Time together, in a Place: And as you make not Visits to Friends, to be silent, you ought to enter into Conversation with 'em; but those Conversations ought to be general, and of general things: for there is no necessity of making your Friend the Confident of your Amours. 'Twould infinitely displease me, to hear you have reveal'd to them all that I have repos'd in you; tho' Secrets never so trivial, yet since utter'd between Lovers, they deserve to be priz'd at a higher rate: For what can shew a Heart more indifferent and indiscreet, than to declare in any fashion, or with Mirth, or Joy, the tender things a Mistress says to a Lover, and which possibly, related at second hand, bear not the same Sense, because they have not the same Sound and Air they had originally, when they came from the soft Heart of her, who sigh'd 'em first to her lavish Lover? Perhaps they are told again with Mirth, or Joy, unbecoming their Character and Business; and then they lose their Graces: (for Love is the most solemn thing in nature, and the most unsuiting with Gaiety.) Perhaps the soft Expressions suit not so well the harsher Voice of the masculine Lover, whose Accents were not form'd for so much Tenderness; at least, not of that sort: for Words that have the same Meaning, are alter'd from their Sense by the least tone or accent of the Voice; and those proper and fitted to my Soul, are not, possibly, so to yours, though both have the same Efficacy upon us; yours upon my Heart, as mine upon yours: and both will be misunderstood by the unjudging World. Beside this, there is a Holiness in Love that's true, that ought not to be profan'd: And as the Poet truly says, at the latter end of an Ode, of which I will recite the whole;
The Invitation.
Aminta, fear not to confess
The charming Secret of thy Tenderness:
That which a Lover can't conceal,
That which, to me, thou shouldst reveal;
And is but what thy lovely Eyes express.
Come, whisper to my panting Heart,
That heaves and meets thy Voice half-way;
That guesses what thou wouldst impart,
And languishes for what thou hast to say.
Confirm my trembling Doubt, and make me know,
Whence all these Blessings, and these Sighings flow.
Why dost thou scruple to unfold
A Mystery that does my Life concern?
If thou ne'er speakst, it will be told;
For Lovers all things can discern.
From overy Look, from every bashful Grace,
That still succeed each other in thy Face,
I shall the dear transporting Secret learn:
But 'tis a Pleasure not to be exprest, }
To hear it by the Voice confest, }
When soft Sighs breath it on my panting Breast. }
All calm and silent is the Grove,
Whose shading Boughs resist the Day;
Here thou mayst blush, and talk of Love,
While only Winds, unheeding, stay,
That will not bear the Sound away:
While I with solemn awful Joy,
All my attentive Faculties employ;
List'ning to every valu'd Word;
And in my Soul the secret Treasure hoard:
There like some Mystery Divine,
The wond'rous Knowledge I'll enshrine.
Love can his Joys no longer call his own,
Than the dear Secret's kept unknown.
There is nothing more true than those two last Lines: and that Love ceases to be a Pleasure, when it ceases to be a Secret, and one you ought to keep sacred: For the World, which never makes a right Judgment of things, will misinterpret Love, as they do Religion; every one judging it, according to the Notion he has of it, or the Talent of his Sense. Love (as a great Duke said) is like Apparitions; every one talks of them, but few have seen 'em: Every body thinks himself capable of understanding Love, and that he is a Master in the Art of it; when there is nothing so nice, or difficult, to be rightly comprehended; and indeed cannot be, but to a Soul very delicate. Nor will he make himself known to the Vulgar: There must be an uncommon Fineness in the Mind that contains him; the rest he only visits in as many Disguises as there are Dispositions and Natures, where he makes but a short stay, and is gone. He can fit himself to all Hearts, being the greatest Flatterer in the World: And he possesses every one with a Confidence, that they are in the number of his Elect; and they think they know him perfectly, when nothing but the Spirits refined possess him in his Excellency. From this difference of Love, in different Souls, proceed those odd fantastick Maxims, which so many hold of so different kinds: And this makes the most innocent Pleasures pass oftentimes for Crimes, with the unjudging Croud, who call themselves Lovers: And you will have your Passion censur'd by as many as you shall discover it to, and as many several ways. I advise you therefore, Damon, to make no Confidents of your Amours; and believe, that Silence has, with me, the most powerful Charm.