When I entreat, either thou wilt not hear, Or else my suit arriving at thy ear Cools and dies there. A strange extremity! To freeze i' th' Sun, and in the shade to fry. Whilst all my blasted hopes decline so soon, 'Tis evening with me, though at high noon.
For pity to thyself, if not to me, Think time will ravish, what I lose, from thee. If my scorch'd heart wither through thy delay, Thy beauty withers too. And swift decay 10 Arrests thy youth. So thou whilst I am slighted Wilt be too soon with age or sorrow nighted.
_To a Lady who sent me a copy of verses at my going to bed._
Lady, your art or wit could ne'er devise To shame me more than in this night's surprise. Why, I am quite unready, and my eye Now winking like my candle, doth deny To guide my hand, if it had aught to write; Nor can I make my drowsy sense indite Which by your verses' music (as a spell Sent from the Sybellean Oracle) Is charm'd and bound in wonder and delight, Faster than all the leaden chains of night. 10
What pity is it then you should so ill Employ the bounty of your flowing quill, As to expend on him your bedward thought, Who can acknowledge that large love in nought But this lean wish; that fate soon send you those Who may requite your rhymes with midnight prose? Meantime, may all delights and pleasing themes Like masquers revel in your maiden dreams, Whilst dull to write, and to do more unmeet, I, as the night invites me, fall asleep. 20
[_To a Lady._] Malone MS. 22, at fol. 34, has a first draft of this poem, in which ll. 1-10 appear thus:
Doubtless the Thespian Spring doth overflow His learned bank: else how should ladies grow Such poets as to court th' unknowing time In verse, and entertain their friends in rhyme? Or you some Sybil are, sent to untie The knotty riddles of all poetry, Whilst your smooth numbers such perfections tell As prove yourself a modern oracle.
[Line: 8 'Sybellean', though an incorrect, is a rather pretty form and good to keep. It will be remembered that as a girl's name 'Syb_e_lla' or 'Sib_e_lla' is not unknown, beside 'Sybilla' and 'Sybil'.]
[Line: 20 This outrageous assonance may have been meant in character--the poet being too much 'in the arms of Porpus' to notice it.]