The COMPLAINT of a LOVER.

BY

MISS ANNE KILLIGREW.

Seest thou younder craggy rock,

Whose head o'er-looks the swelling main,
Where never shepherd fed his flock,

Or careful peasant sow'd his grain ?

5

No wholesome herb grows on the same,

Or bird of day will on it reft ;
'Tis barren as the hopeless flame,

That scorches my tormented breaft.

Deep underneath a cave does lie,

Th' entrance hid with dismal yew,
Where Phoebus never shew'd his eye,

Or chearful day yet pierced through.

In that dark melancholy cell,

(Retreat and follace to my woe) Love, fad difpair, and I, do dwell,

15 The springs from whence my griefs do flow.

Treacherous love that did appear,
(When he at first approach't my heart)

* Born 1660; dyed 1685.

Drest in a garb far from severe,

Or threatning ought of future smart,

20

1

So innocent those charms then seem'd,

When Rosalinda first I spy'd,
Ah! who would them have deadly deem'd ?

But Aow'rs do often serpents hide.

23

Beneath those sweets concealed lay,

To love the cruel foe, disdain, With which (alas) she does repay

My constant and deserving pain.

When I in tears have spent the night,

With fighs I usher in the sun, Who never saw a fadder sight

In all the courses he has run.

30

Sleep, which to others ease does prove,

Comès unto me, alas, in vain : For in my dreams I am in love,

And in them too she does disdain.

35

Sometimes, t'amuse my forrow, I

Unto the hollow rocks repair, And loudly to the eccho cry,

Ah! gentle nimph, come ease my care.

40

Thou who, times past, a lover wer't,

Ah! pity me, who now am so, And by a sense of thine own smart,

Alleviate my mighty woe.

Come flatter then, or chide my grief;

Catch my last words, and call me fool; Or say she loves for my relief;

My paflion either footh, or school.

DESPAIR.

BY MRS. ELIZABETH ROWE. *

o}

OH! lead me to some solitary gloom,
Where no enliv'ning beams, nor chearful echoes

come ;
But filent all, and dusky let it be,
Remote and unfrequented, but by me;
Mysterious, close, and sullen -as that grief, 5
Which leads me to its covert for relief.
Far from the busy world's detested noise,
Its wretched pleasures, and distracted joys;
Far from the jolly fools, who laugh, and play,
And dance, and fing, impertinently gay,
Their short, inestimable hours away;
Far from the studious follies of the great,
The tiresome farce of ceremonious state :
There, in a melting, solemn, dying strain,
Let me, all day, upon my lyre complain, 15
And wind up all its soft, harmonious strings,
To noble, serious, melancholy things.
And let no human foot, but mine, e'er trace
The close recesses of the sacred place :
Nor let a bird of chearful note come near,

20 To whisper out his airy raptures here. Only the pensive songstress of the grove, Let her, by mine, her mournful notes improve ;

Born 1674 ; dyed 1739. Her maiden name was Singer.

While drooping winds among the branches figh, And sluggish waters heavily roll by.

55 Here, to my fatal sorrows let me give The short remaining hours I have to live. Then, with a fullen deep-fetch'd groan, expire, And to the grave's dark solitude retire.