Works

Dulce est desipere in loco.

I

Some Folks are drunk, yet do not know it:
So might not Bacchus give You Law?
Was it a Muse, O lofty Poet,
Or Virgin of St. Cyr, You saw?...

The train of equipage and pomp of state,
The shining sideboard and the burnish'd plate,
Let other ministers, great Anne, require,
And partial fall thy gift to their desire....

While from our looks, fair nymph, you guess
The secret passions of our mind;
My heavy eyes, you say, confess
A heart to love and grief inclined.

There needs, alas! but little art...

Thy nags, the leanest things alive,
So very hard thou lovest to drive,
I heard thy anxious coachman say
It costs thee more in whips than hay.

As Nancy at her toilette sat,
Admiring this, and blaming that,
Tell me, she said, but tell me true,
The nymph who could your heart subdue.
What sort of charms does she possess?...

When Nell, given o'er by the doctor, was dying,
And John at the chimney stood decently crying,
'Tis in vain said the woman to make such ado,
For to our long home we must all of us go.
...

Let others from the Town retire,
And in the fields seek new delight;
My Phillis does such joys inspire,
No other objects please my sight.

In her alone I find whate'er...

Whilst others proclaim
This nymph or that swain,
Dearest Nelly the lovely I'll sing:
She shall grace every verse,
I'll her beauties rehearse,
Which lovers can't think an ill thing.
...

The circling months begin this day
To run their yearly ring,
And long-breathed time, which ne'er will stay,
Refits his wings and shoots away,
It round again to bring.
Who feels the force of female eyes...

Written three hundred years since.

Be it right or wrong, these men among
On women do complayne;
Affyrmynge this, how that it is
A labour spent in vaine
To love them wele; for never a dele...

When Jove lay bless'd in his Alcm'na's charms,
Three nights in one he press'd her in his arms;
The sun lay set, and conscious nature strove
To shade her god, and to prolong his love....

Bless'd be the princes who have fought
For pompous names or wide dominion,
Since by their error we are taught
That happiness is but opinion.