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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  The Fickle Maid

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!