dots-menu
×

Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  The Dream

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.