T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Fickle Maid
By Robert Gould (d. 1709?)| FAIR, and soft, and gay, and young, | |
| All charm! she played, she danced, she sung, | |
| There was no way to ’scape the dart, | |
| No care could guard the lover’s heart, | |
| Ah! why, cried I, and dropt a tear, | 5 |
| (Adoring, yet despairing e’er | |
| To have her to myself alone), | |
| Was so much sweetness made for one? | |
| But growing bolder, in her ear | |
| I in soft numbers told my care: | 10 |
| She heard, and rais’d me from her feet, | |
| And seem’d to glow with equal heat. | |
| Like heaven’s, too mighty to express, | |
| My joys could but be known by guess! | |
| Ah! fool, said I, what have I done, | 15 |
| To wish her made for more than one! | |
| But long She had not been in view, | |
| Before her eyes their beams withdrew; | |
| Ere I had reckon’d half her charms | |
| She sank into another’s arms. | 20 |
| But she that once could faithless be, | |
| Will favour him no more than me: | |
| He too will find himself undone, | |
| And that she was not made for one! | |