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! | |