Let worldlings ask her help, or fear her harms;
We can lie fafe, lock'd in each other's arms,
Like the bleft faints, eternal raptures know,
And flight those storms that vainly rest below.
Yet this, all this you are refolv'd to quit;
I fee my ruin, and I must submit:
But think, O think, before you prove unkind,
How loft a wretch you leave forlorn behind.
Malignant envy, mix'd with hate and fear,
Revenge for wrongs too burden fome to bear,
Ev'n zeal itself, from whence all mischiefs spring,
Have never done so barbarous a thing.
With fuch a fate the heavens decreed to vex
Armida once, though of the fairer fex;
Rinaldo fhe had charm'd with fo much art,
Hers was his power, his perfon, and his heart:
Honour's high thoughts no more his mind could move;
She footh'd his rage, and turn'd it all to love:
When strait a gust of fierce devotion blows,
And in a moment all her joys o'erthrows:
The poor Armida tears her golden hair,
Matchlefs till now, for love or for defpair.
Who is not mov'd while the fad nymph complains?
Yet you now at what Tafso only feigns :
And after all our vows, our fighs, our tears,
My banish'd forrows, and your conquer'd fears:
So many doubts, fo many dangers past,
Visions of zeal muft vanquish me at last.
Thus, in great Homer's war, throughout the field Some hero ftill made all things mortal yield ;
But when a god once took the vanquish'd side,
The weak prevail'd, and the victorious dy❜d.
Written during a Sea Voyage, when fent to command the Forces for the Relief of TANGIER.
W Ithin the filent fhades of foft repofe,
Where Fancy's boundless stream for ever flows;
Where the infranchis'd soul at ease can play,
Tir'd with the toilfome bufinefs of the day;
Where princes gladly reft their weary heads,
And change uneafy thrones for downy beds;
Where feeming joys delude despairing minds,
And where ev'n jealousy fome quiet finds;
There I and forrow for a while could part,
Sleep clos'd my eyes, and eas'd a fighing heart.
But here too foon a wretched lover found
In deepest griefs the fleep can ne'er be found;
With ftrange furprize my troubled fancy brings
Odd antic shapes of wild unheard-of things;
Difmal and terrible they all appear,
My foul was fhook with an unusual fear.
But as when vifions glad the eyes of faints,
And kind relief attends devout complaints,
Some beauteous angel in bright charms will fhine,
And spreads a glory round, that's all divine;
Juft fuch a bright and beauteous form appears,
The monsters vanish, and with them my fears.
The faireft shape was then before me brought,
That eyes e'er faw, or fancy ever thought;
How weak are words to fhew fuch excellence,
Which ev'n confounds the foul, as well as fenfe!
And, while our eyes transporting pleasure find,
It stops not here, but ftrikes the very mind.
Some angel speaks her praife; no human tongue,
But with its utmost art must do her wrong.
The only woman that has power to kill,
And yet is good enough to want the will;
Who needs no foft alluring words repeat,
Nor study'd looks of languishing deceit.
Fantastic beauty, always in the wrong,
Still thinks fome pride must to its power belong;
An air affected, and an haughty mein,
Something that feems to fay, I would be seen.
But of all womankind this only she,
Full of its charms, and from its frailty free,
Deferves fome nobler Muse her fame to raise,
By making the whole fex befide her pyramid of praife.
She, the appear'd the source of all my joys,
The dearest care that all my thought employs :
Gently the look'd, as when I left her laft,
When first she seiz'd my heart, and held it fast :
When, if my vows, alas! were made too late,
I faw my doom came not from her, but fate.
With pity then she cas'd my raging pain,
And her kind eyes could fcarce from tears refrain:
Why, gentle fwain, said she, why do you grieve
In words I should not hear, much lefs believe;
I gaze on that which is a fault to mind,
And ought to fly the danger which I find :
Of falfe mankind though you may be the best,
Ye all have robb'd poor women of their reft.
I fee your pain, and fee it too with grief,
Because I would, yet must not, give relief.
Thus, for a husband's fake as well as yours,
My fcrupulous foul divided pain endures;
Guilty, alas! to both: for thus I do
Too much for him, yet not enough for you.
Give over then, give over, hapless fwain,
A paffion moving, but a paffion vain :
Not chance nor time fhall ever change my thought: 'Tis better much to die, than do a fault.
Oh, worse than ever! Is it then my doom
Juft to fee heaven, where I must never come?
Your foft compaffion, if not fomething more ;
Yet I remain as wretched as before;
The wind indeed is fair, but ah! no fight of fhore.
Farewell, too fcrupulous fair-one; oh! farewell;
What torments I endure, no tongue can tell :
Thank heaven, my fate tranfports me now where I,
Your martyr, may with ease and fafety die.
With that I kneel'd, and feiz'd her trembling hand, While the impos'd this cruel kind command: Live, and love on; you will be true, I know; But live then, and come back to tell me fo;
For though I blush at this last guilty breath,
I can endure that better than your death.
Tormenting kindnefs! barbarous reprieve!
Condemn'd to die, and yet compell'd to live!
This tender fcene my dream repeated o'er,
Juft as it pafs'd in real truth before.
Methought I then fell groveling to the ground,
Till, on a fudden rais'd, I wondering found
A ftrange appearance all in taintless white;
His form gave reverence, and his face delight :
Goodness and greatnefs in his eyes were feen,
Gentle his look, and affable his mein.
A kindly notice of me thus he took :
"What mean these flowing eyes, this ghastly look !
"Thefe trembling joints, this loofe difhevcl'd hair,
"And this cold dew, the drops of deep despair ?”
With grief and wonder first my spirits faint,
But thus at last I vented my complaint:
Behold a wretch whom cruel fate has found,
And in the depth of all misfortune drown'd.
There fhines a nymph, to whom an envy'd swain
Is ty'd in Hymen's ceremonious chain;
But, cloy'd with charms of fuch a marriage-bed,
And fed with manna, yet he longs for bread ;
And will, most husband-like, not only range
For love perhaps of nothing else but change,
But to inferior beauty proftrate lies,
And courts her love in fcorn of Flavia's eyes.
All this I knew (the form divine reply'd)
And did but afk to have thy temper try'd,
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