HOW Happy’s the Mortal whose Heart is his own,
And for his own Quiet’s beholden to none,
(Eccho. Beholden to none, to none;)
That to Love’s Enchantments ne’er lendeth an Ear,
Which a Frown or a Smile can equally bear,
(Eccho. Can equally bear, can bear,)
Nor on ev’ry frail Beauty still fixes an Eye,
But from those sly Felons doth prudently fly,
(Eccho. Doth prudently, prudently fly, doth fly;)
For the Heart that still wanders is pounded at last,
And ’tis hard to relieve it when once it is fast,
(Eccho. When once it is fast, is fast.)
By sporting with Dangers still longer and longer,
The Fetters and Chains of the Captive grows stronger;
He drills on his Evil, then curses his Fate,
And bewails those Misfortunes himself did create:
Like an empty Camelion he lives on the Air,
And all the Day lingers ’twixt Hope and Despair;
Like a Fly in the Candle he sports and he Games,
’Till a Victim in Folly, he dies in the Flames.
If Love, so much talk’d of, a Heresie be,
Of all it enslaves few true Converts we see;
If hectoring and huffing would once do the Feat,
There’s few that would fail of a Vict’ry Compleat;
But with Gain to come off, and the Tyrant subdue,
Is an Art that is hitherto practis’d by few;
How easie is Freedom once had to maintain,
But Liberty lost is as hard to regain.
This driv’ling and sniv’ling, and chiming in Parts,
This wining and pining, and breaking of Hearts;
All pensive and silent in Corners to sit,
Are pretty fine Pastimes for those that want Wit:
When this Passion and Fashion doth so far abuse ’em,
It were good the State should for Pendulums use ’em;
For if Reason it seize on, and make it give o’er,
No Labour can save, or reliev’t any more.
A Song. Set by Mr. Henry Purcell.
[[Listen]]
A Thousand several ways I try’d,
To hide my Passion from your view;
Conscious that I should be deny’d,
Because I cannot Merit you:
Absence, the last and worst of all,
Did so encrease my wretched Pain,
That I return’d, rather to fall
By the swift Fate, by the swift Fate of your Disdain.