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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  O What Pleasure ’Tis to Find a Coy Heart

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

O What Pleasure ’Tis to Find a Coy Heart

By Aphra Behn (1640–1689)
 
O WHAT pleasure, ’tis to find
  A coy heart melt by slow degrees
When to yielding ’tis inclined,
  Yet her fear a ruin sees;
When her tears do kindly flow        5
And her sighs do come and go!
 
O how charming ’tis to meet
  Soft resistance from the fair,
When her pride and wishes meet
  And by turns increase her care;        10
O how charming ’tis to know
She would yield but can’t tell how!
 
O how pretty is her scorn
  When, confused ’twixt love and shame,
Still refusing, tho’ she burn,        15
  The soft pressures of my flame!
Her pride in her denial lies
And mine is in my victories.