T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Lamentation for Dorinda
By Matthew Prior (1664–1721)(From Poems, 1722) FAREWELL ye shady walks, and fountains, | |
| Sinking valleys, rising mountains: | |
| Farewell ye crystal streams, that pass | |
| Thro’ fragrant meads of verdant grass: | |
| Farewell ye flowers, sweet and fair, | 5 |
| That used to grace Dorinda’s hair: | |
| Farewell ye woods, who used to shade | |
| The pressing youth, and yielding maid: | |
| Farewell ye birds, whose morning song | |
| Oft made us know we slept too long: | 10 |
| Farewell dear bed, so often prest, | |
| So often above others blest, | |
| With the kind weight of all her charms, | |
| When panting, dying, in my arms. | |
| Dorinda’s gone, gone far away, | 15 |
| She’s gone, and Strephon cannot stay: | |
| By sympathetic ties I find | |
| That to Her sphere I am confin’d; | |
| My motions still on Her must wait, | |
| And what She wills to me is fate. | 20 |
| She’s gone, O! hear it all ye bowers, | |
| Ye walks, ye fountains, trees, and flowers, | |
| For whom you made your earliest show, | |
| For whom you took a pride to grow. | |
| She’s gone, O! hear ye nightingales, | 25 |
| Ye mountains ring it to the vales, | |
| And echo to the country round, | |
| The mournful, dismal, killing sound: | |
| Dorinda’s gone, and Strephon goes, | |
| To find with Her his lost repose. | 30 |
| But ere I go, O! let me see, | |
| That all things mourn Her loss like me: | |
| Play, play, no more ye spouting fountains, | |
| Rise ye valleys, sink ye mountains; | |
| Ye walks, in moss, neglected lie, | 35 |
| Ye birds, be mute; ye stream, be dry. | |
| Fade, fade, ye flowers, and let the rose | |
| No more its blushing buds disclose: | |
| Ye spreading beech, and taper fir, | |
| Languish away in mourning Her; | 40 |
| And never let your friendly shade, | |
| The stealth of other Lovers aid. | |
| And thou, O! dear, delightful bed, | |
| The altar where Her maidenhead, | |
| With burning cheeks, and down cast eyes, | 45 |
| With panting breasts, and kind replies, | |
| And other due solemnity, | |
| Was offer’d up to love and me. | |
| Hereafter suffer no abuse, | |
| Since consecrated to our use, | 50 |
| As thou art sacred, don’t profane | |
| Thy self with any vulgar stain, | |
| But to thy pride be still displayed, | |
| The print her lovely limbs have made: | |
| See, in a moment, all is chang’d, | 55 |
| The flowers shrunk up, the trees disrang’d, | |
| And that which wore so sweet a face, | |
| Become a horrid, desert place. | |
| Nature Her influence withdraws, | |
| Th’ effect must follow still the cause, | 60 |
| And where Dorinda will reside, | |
| Nature must there all gay provide. | |
| Decking that happy spot of earth, | |
| Like Eden’s-Garden at its birth, | |
| To please Her matchless, darling Maid, | 65 |
| The wonder of her Forming-Trade; | |
| Excelling All who e’er Excelled, | |
| And as we ne’er the like beheld, | |
| So neither is, nor e’er can be, | |
| Her Parallel, or Second She. | 70 |