An Altar and Sacrifice to Disdain, for freeing him from love. My muse by thee restor'd to life, Yet living still: Looks coyly strange, And last of all Blind fancy's fire, False beauty's thrall, That binds desire: All these I offer to Disdain, STREPHON'S PALINODE. SWEET, I do not pardon crave, By deserts this fault amended; That your ire May with penance be suspended. Not my will, but fate did fetch Into this unhappy error: Which to plague, no tyrant's mind. Pain can find Like my heart's self-guilty terror. Then, O then! let that suffice, Need not, need not more afflict me: Nor your sweet tongue, dipt in gall, Need at all From your presence interdict me. By my love, long, firm, and true, By these tears my grief expressing, Pity me my fault confessing. Or, if I may not desire May with penance be suspended, Yet, let me full pardon crave, When I have With soon death my fault amended. CUPID'S PASTIME. Ir chanc'd of late a shepherd swain, Within a thicket, on the plain, Her golden hair o'erspread her face, Her quiver had her pillow's place, Her breast lay bare to every blast, The shepherd stood and gaz'd his fill, The crafty boy that sees her sleep, There come, he steals her shafts away, But, ere she wakes, hies thence apace. Scarce was he gone when she awakes, Her bended bow in haste she takes, Forth flew the shaft, and pierc'd his heart, That to the ground he fell with pain; But up again forthwith he start, And to the nymph he ran amain. Amaz'd to see so strange a sight, She shot, and shot, but all in vain ; The more his wounds, the more his might, Her angry eyes are great with tears, She blames her hands, she blames her skill, The bluntness of her shafts she fears, And try them on herself she will. Take heed, sweet nymph, try not the shaft, Yet try she will, and prick some bare, That breast she prick'd, and through that breast At feeling of this new-come guest, She runs not now, she shoots no more, VOL. III. |