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Desires Government.

WHERE Wit is over-rul'd by Will,
And Will is led by fond Desire,
There Reason were as good be still,
As speaking, kindle greater fire.
For where Desire doth bear the sway,
The heart must rule, the head obey.

What boots the cunning pilot's skill,

To tell which way to shape their course, When he that steers will have his will,

And drive them where he list perforce?

So Reason shews the truth in vain

Where fond Desire as king doth reign.

An Altar and Sacrifice to Disdain, for freeing him from Love.

My Muse by thee restor❜d to life,
To thee, Disdain, this altar rears;
Whereon she offers causeless strife,
Self-spending sighs, and bootless tears.
Long suits in vain,

Hate for good will,
Still-dying pain,

Yet living still:
Self-loving pride,

Looks coyly strange,
Will, reason's guide,
Desire of change,

And last of all

Blind Fancy's fire,

False Beauty's thrall,

That binds Desire:

All these I offer to Disdain,

By whom I live from Fancy free;
With vow that if I love again

My life the sacrifice shall be.

Strephon's Palinode.

SWEET, I do not pardon crave
Till I have

By deserts this fault amended:
This, I only this desire,

That your ire

May with penance be suspended.

Not my will, but fate did fetch
Me, poor wretch,

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,
Your dear eyes

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,

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By these tears my grief expressing,
By this pipe, which nights and days
Sounds your praise,

Pity me my fault confessing.

Or, if I may not desire
That your ire

May with penance be suspended;
Yet, let me full pardon crave,

When I have

With soon death my fault amended.

A Fiction how Cupid made a Nymph wound herself with his arrows.

IT chanc'd of late a shepherd's swain,
That went to seek a strayed sheep,
Within a thicket, on the plain,
Espied a dainty nymph asleep.

Her golden hair o'erspread her face,
Her careless arms abroad were cast,

Her quiver had her pillow's place,

Her breast lay bare to every blast.

Erroneously ascribed in Dryden's Misc. (Vol. 4. 274.), to Sidney Godolphin, under the title of "Cupid's Pastime."

The shepherd stood and gaz'd his fill,

Nought durst he do, nought durst he say;

When chance, or else perhaps his will,

Did guide the god of love that way.

The crafty boy that sees her sleep
Whom, if she wak'd, he durst not see,
Behind her closely seeks to creep,
Before her nap should ended be.

There come, he steals her shafts away,
And puts his own into their place;
Ne dares he any longer stay,

But, ere she wakes, hies thence apace.

Scarce was he gone when she awakes,
And spies the shepherd standing by;
Her bended bow in haste she takes,
And at the simple swain let fly.

Forth flew the shaft, and pierc'd his heart, That to the ground he fell with pain;

Yet 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 ;

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