Can you the shore inconstant call, Which still, as waves pass by, embraces all; Or can you fault with pilots find For changing course, yet never blame the wind? Since, drunk with vanity, you fell, The things turn round to you that steadfast dwell; And you yourself, who from us take your flight, Wonder to find us out of sight. So the same error seizes you, As men in motion think the trees move too. THE WELCOME. GO, let the fatted calf be kill'd; And fill'd with sorrow for the past: Welcome, ah! welcome, my poor heart! Welcome! I little thought, I'll swear ('Tis now so long since we did part), Ever again to see thee here: Dear wanderer! since from me you fled, How often have I heard that thou wert dead! Hast thou not found each woman's breast (The lands where thou hast travelled) Either by savages possest, Or wild and uninhabited? What joy couldst take, or what repose, In countries so unciviliz'd as those? Lust, the scorching dog-star, here When once or twice you chanc'd to view Like China, it admitted you But to the frontier-part. From Paradise shut for evermore, Well fare the pride, and the disdain, I ne'er had seen this heart again, If any fair-one had been kind: My dove, but once let loose, I doubt Would ne'er return, had not the flood been out. THE HEART FLED AGAIN. FALSE, foolish heart! didst thou not say That thou wouldst never leave me more? Fled as far from me as before. Ev'n so the gentle Tyrian dame, The doleful Ariadne so On the wide shore forsaken stood: "False Theseus, whither dost thou go?" Afar false Theseus cut the flood. But Bacchus came to her relief: Bacchus himself's too weak to ease my grief. Ah! senseless heart, to take no rest, But travel thus eternally! Thus to be froz'n in every breast! And to be scorch'd in every eye! Wandering about like wretched Cain, Thrust-out, ill-us'd, by all, but by none slain! Well, since thou wilt not here remain, WOMEN'S SUPERSTITION. OR I'm a very dunce, or woman-kind I can no sense nor no contexture find, By customs and traditions they live, Preach we, Love's prophets, what we will, Before their mothers' Gods they fondly fall, Which they, as we do them, adore. But then, like men both covetous and devout, The hearts of men they sacrifice. THE SOUL. SOME dull philosopher-when he hears me say That neither is, nor will be, I, As a form servient and assisting there Will cry, "Absurd!" and ask me how I live; And syllogisms against it give. A curse on all your vain philosophies, Her body is my soul; laugh not at this, 'T is that preserves my being and my breath; Nay, all my thoughts and speeches too; And separation from it is my death. |