Wedlock and death too often prove
Pernicious to the fires of Love:
With equal strength they both combine
Hearts best united[128] to disjoin:
Hence ardent loves too soon remit;
Thus die the fires that Cupid lit.
Female tears and April snow
Sudden come and sudden go.
Since his head is levelled low,
Cease remembrance of your woe.
Can it be in reason found
To be crazy for Love's wound?[129]
Must you live in sorrows drowned
For a lover under ground?
Lucinda
What a picture have I seen!
What can all these visions mean!
Wintry groves and vacant halls,
Coffins hid by sable palls,
Monuments and funerals!
Forms terrific to the sight,
Ghastly phantoms clad in white;
Streams that ever seemed to freeze,
Shaded o'er by willow trees,[130]
Ever drooping—hardly green—
What a vision have I seen!
One I saw of angel kind,
From the dregs of life refined;
On her visage such a smile,[131]
And she talk'd in such a style!
All was heaven upon her brow;—
Yes, I think I see her now!
All in beams of light arrayed;
And these cheering words she said:
Fair Lucinda, come to me;
What has grief to do with thee?
O forsake your wretched shore,
Crimsoned with its children's gore![132]
Could you but a moment stray
In the meadows where I play,
You would die to come away.
Come away, and speed your wing—[133]
Here we love, and here we sing!
Thyrsis
You will not yet forget your glooms,
The heavy heart, the downcast eye,
The cheek that scarce a smile assumes,
The never-ending sigh![134]
Lucinda
Had you the secret cause to grieve—
That in this breast doth lie,
Instead of wishing to relieve
You would be just as I.
Thyrsis
What secret cause have you to grieve?—
A lover gone astray?—[135]
If one was able to deceive,
Perhaps another may.
Lucinda