When Chloris to the temple comes,

Adoring crowds before her fall;

She can restore the dead from tombs,
And every life but mine recall.
I only am by Love designed
To be the victim for mankind.

CXII.

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY, 1639-1701.

SONG.

HILLIS is my only joy,

PHILLIS

Faithless as the winds or seas;

Sometimes coming, sometimes coy,

Yet she never fails to please;

If with a frown

I am cast down,

Phillis smiling,

And beguiling,

Makes me happier than before.

Though, alas! too late I find,

Nothing can her fancy fix;

Yet the moment she is kind,
I forgive her all her tricks;
Which, though I see,

I can't get free ;

She deceiving,

I believing;

What need lovers wish for more?

CXIII.

A

VICTORIA'S SONG.

H Chloris! that I now could sit
As unconcerned, as when

Your infant beauty could beget

No pleasure nor no pain.

When I the dawn used to admire,
And praised the coming day,

I little thought the growing fire
Must take my rest away.

Your charms in harmless childhood lay,
Like metals in the mine:

Age from no face took more away,

Than youth concealed in thine.

But as your charms insensibly
To their perfection prest,
Fond love as unperceived did fly,

And in my bosom rest.

My passion with your beauty grew,
And Cupid at my heart,

Still as his mother favoured you,

Threw a new flaming dart.

Each gloried in their wanton part:

To make a lover he

Employed the utmost of his art,

To make a beauty she.

Though now I slowly bend to love, Uncertain of my fate,

If your fair self my chains approve, I shall my freedom hate.

Lovers, like dying men, may well
At first disordered be;
Since none alive can truly tell
What fortune they must see.

M

CXIV.

LOVE ARMED.

SONG.

APHRA BEHN, 1642-1689.

L

OVE in fantastic triumph sat,

Whilst bleeding hearts around him flowed,

For whom fresh pains he did create,

And strange tyrannic power he showed. From thy bright eyes he took his fire, Which round about in sport he hurled; But 'twas from mine he took desire Enough to undo the amorous world.

From me he took his sighs and tears,
From thee his pride and cruelty;
From me his languishments and fears,
And every killing dart from thee;
Thus thou and I the god have armed,
And set him up a deity;

But my poor heart alone is harmed,

Whilst thine the victor is, and free.