RIVALS

Of all the torments, all the cares,
With which our lives are cursed;
Of all the plagues a lover bears,

Sure rivals are the worst!
By partners in each other kind
Afflictions easier grow;
In love alone we hate to find
Companions of our woe.

Sylvia, for all the pangs you see
Are laboring in my breast,
I beg not you would favor me,
Would you but slight the rest!
How great soe'er your rigors are,
With them alone I'll cope;
I can endure my own despair,

But not another's hope.

William Walsh [1663-1708]

"I LATELY VOWED, BUT 'TWAS IN HASTE"

I LATELY Vowed, but 'twas in haste,

That I no more would court

The joys which seem when they are past

As dull as they are short.

I oft to hate my mistress swear,
But soon my weakness find:

I make my oaths when she's severe,
But break them when she's kind.

John Oldmixon [1673-1742]

THE TOUCH-STONE

A FOOL and knave with different views

For Julia's hand apply;

The knave to mend his fortune sues,

The fool to please his eye.

"I Took a Hansom on To-day" 827

Ask you how Julia will behave,
Depend on't for a rule,

If she's a fool she'll wed the knave

If she's a knave, the fool.

AIR

Samuel Bishop [1731-1795]

From "The Duenna "

I NE'ER could any luster see
In eyes that would not look on me;
I ne'er saw nectar on a lip,

But where my own did hope to sip.
Has the maid who seeks my heart
Cheeks of rose, untouched by art?
I will own the color true

When yielding blushes aid their hue.

Is her hand so soft and pure?
I must press it, to be sure;
Nor can I be certain then,
Till it, grateful, press again.
Must I, with attentive eye,
Watch her heaving bosom sigh?
I will do so, when I see

That heaving bosom sigh for me.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan [1751-1816]

"I TOOK A HANSOM ON TO-DAY"

I TOOK a hansom on to-day,

For a round I used to know

That I used to take for a woman's sake

In a fever of to-and-fro.

There were the landmarks one and all-
What did they stand to show?
Street and square and river were there—
Where was the ancient woe?

Never a hint of a challenging hope

Nor a hope laid sick and low,

But a longing dead as its kindred sped
A thousand years ago!

William Ernest Henley [1849-1903]

DA CAPO

SHORT and sweet, and we've come to the end of it

Our poor little love lying cold.

Shall no sonnet, then, ever be penned of it?
Nor the joys and pains of it told?
How fair was its face in the morning,
How close its caresses at noon,

How its evening grew chill without warning,
Unpleasantly soon!

I can't say just how we began it-
In a blush, or a smile, or a sigh;
Fate took but an instant to plan it;
It needs but a moment to die.
Yet-remember that first conversation,

When the flowers you had dropped at your feet
I restored. The familiar quotation

Was "Sweets to the sweet."

Oh, their delicate perfume has haunted
My senses a whole season through.

If there was one soft charm that you wanted
The violets lent it to you.

I whispered you, life was but lonely:

A cue which you graciously took;

And your eyes learned a look for me only-
A very nice look.

And sometimes your hand would touch my hand,
With a sweetly particular touch;

You said many things in a sigh, and

Made a look express wondrously much.
We smiled for the mere sake of smiling,
And laughed for no reason but fun;
Irrational joys; but beguiling-

And all that is done!

Song Against Women

We were idle, and played for a moment

At a game that now neither will press:
I cared not to find out what "No" meant;
Nor your lips to grow yielding with “Yes.”
Love is done with and dead; if there lingers
A faint and indefinite ghost,

It is laid with this kiss on your fingers—
A jest at the most.

'Tis a commonplace, stale situation,

Now the curtain comes down from above
On the end of our little flirtation-
A travesty romance; for Love,
If he climbed in disguise to your lattice,
Fell dead of the first kisses' pain:
But one thing is left us now; that is-
Begin it again.

829

Henry Cuyler Bunner [1855-1896]

SONG AGAINST WOMEN

WHY should I sing of women

And the softness of night,

When the dawn is loud with battle
And the day's teeth bite,

And there's a sword to lay my hand to

And a man's fight?

Why should I sing of women? . . .

There's life in the sun,

And red adventure calling

Where the roads run,

And cheery brews at the tavern

When the day's done.

I've sung of a hundred women

In a hundred lands:

But all their love is nothing

But drifting sands.

I'm sick of their tears and kisses

And their pale hands.

And their bought lips;

But out on the clean horizon

I can hear the whips

Of the white waves lashing the bulwarks
Of great, strong ships:

And the trails that run to the westward

Are shot with fire,

And the winds hurl from the headland

With ancient ire;

And all my body itches

With an old desire.

So I'll deal no more in women
And the softness of night,
But I'll follow the red adventure
And the wind's flight;

And I'll sing of the sea and of battle

And of men's might.

Willard Huntington Wright [18

SONG OF THYRSIS

THE turtle on yon withered bough,

That lately mourned her murdered mate,

Has found another comrade now

Such changes all await!

Again her drooping plume is drest,

Again she's willing to be blest
And takes her lover to her nest.

If nature has decreed it so
With all above, and all below,
Let us like them forget our woe;

And not be killed with sorrow.
If I should quit your arms to-night
And chance to die before 'twas light,
I would advise you-and you might-
Love again to-morrow.

Philip Freneau [1752-1832]