Song from ‘Lycidus’
A
CY in love I’ll prize, And be to beauty true:
And doat on all the lovely eyes, That are but fair and new.
On Cloris’ charms to day I’ll feed, To-morrow Daphne move;
For bright Lucinda next I’ll bleed, And still be true to love.
But glory only and renown My serious hours shall claim; My nobler minutes those shall crown, My looser hours, my flame.
All the fatigues of love I’ll hate. And Phillis’s new
That hopeless fire shall dissipate, My heart for Cloe warms.
The easy nymph I once enjoy’d Neglected now shall pass,
Possession, that has love destroy’d, Shall make me pitiless. In vain she now attracts and mourns, Her moving power is gone,
Too late (when once enjoy’d) she burns, And yielding, is undone.
My friend, the little charming boy,
Conforms to my desires,
And ’tis but to augment my joy He pains me with his fires;
All that’s in happy love I’ll taste, And rifle all his store, And for one joy that will not last, He brings a thousand more.
Aphra Behn
Other author posts
The Libertine
A ND martyrs I have made, All sacrificed to my desire, A thousand beauties have betray'd That languish in resistless fire: The untamed heart to hand I brought,
Song “Cease cease Aminta to complain”
SE, cease, Aminta, to complain, Thy languishments give o’er, Why should’st thou sigh because the swain Another does adore Those charms, fond maid, that vanquish’d thee, Have many a conquest won,
Song Love
Oh love that stronger art than Wine, Pleasing Delusion, Witchery divine,
On the Death of the late Earl of Rochester
Mourn, Mourn, ye Muses, all your loss deplore, The Young, the Noble Strephon is no more Yes, yes, he fled quick as departing Light,
