T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
A Song: Get you gone, you will undo me
By Sir Charles Sedley (16391701)(Miscellaneous Works, 1702) GET you gone, you will undo me, | |
If you love me don’t pursue me, | |
Let that inclination perish, | |
Which I dare no longer cherish, | |
Be content y’ave won the field, | 5 |
’Twere base to hurt me, now I yield. | |
With harmless thoughts I did begin, | |
But in the crowd love entered in; | |
I knew him not, he was so gay, | |
So innocent, so full of play. | 10 |
I sported thus with young desire, | |
Cheered with his light, freed from his fire. | |
But now his teeth and claws are grown, | |
Let me this fatal Lion shun; | |
You found me harmless, leave me so, | 15 |
For were I not, you’d leave me too; | |
But when you change remember still, | |
’Twas my misfortune not my will. | |