T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Dream
Anonymous(From The Musical Miscellany, [c. 1729]; the music by Handel) |
BENEATH a shady Willow, | |
| Hard by a purling Stream, | |
| A Mossy Bank my Pillow, | |
| I fancy’d in a Dream, | |
| That I the charming Phillis | 5 |
| Did eagerly embrace; | |
| Her Breast as white as Lillies, | |
| And Rosamonda’s Face. | |
| What ecstasies of Pleasure | |
| She gave, to tell’s in vain, | 10 |
| When with the hidden Treasure | |
| She blest her am’rous Swain: | |
| Could nought our Joys discover, | |
| And I my Dream believe, | |
| I so could sleep for ever, | 15 |
| And still be so deceived. | |
| But when I waked, deluded, | |
| And found all but a Dream, | |
| I fain would have eluded | |
| The melancholy Theme. | 20 |
| Ye Gods! there’s no enduring | |
| So exquisite a Pain; | |
| The Wound is past all curing, | |
| That Cupid gave the Swain. | |