OLD as I am, for ladies love unfit,
The power of beauty I remember yet.
Which once inflam'd my foul, and still infpires my wit.
If love be folly, the fevere divine
Has felt that folly, though he cenfures mine;
Pollutes the pleasures of a chaste embrace,
Acts what I write, and propagates in grace,
With riotous excefs, a prieftly race.
Suppose him free, and that I forge th' offence,
He fhew'd the way, perverting first my sense:
In malice witty, and with venom fraught,
He makes me fpeak the things I never thought.
Compute the gains of his ungovern'd zeal ;
Ill fuits his cloth the praise of railing well.
The world will think that what we loosely write,
Though now arraign'd, he read with fome delight;
Because he seems to chew the cud again,
When his broad comment makes the text too plain;
And teaches more in one explaining page,
Than all the double-meanings of the stage.
What needs he paraphrafe on what we mean?
We were at worst but wanton; he's obfcene.
I not my fellows nor myself excufe;
But love's the fubject of the comic Mufe;
Nor can we write without it, nor would you
A tale of only dry inftruction view;
Nor love is always of a vicious kind,
But oft to virtuous acts inflames the mind,
Awakes the fleepy vigour of the foul,
And brushing o'er adds motion to the pool.
Love, ftudious how to please, improves our parts
With polish'd manners, and adorns with arts.
Love first invented verfe, and form'd the rhyme,
The motion meafur'd, harmoniz'd the chime;
To liberal acts enlarg'd the narrow-soul'd,
Soften'd the fierce, and made the coward bold:
The world, when wafte, he peopled with increase,
And warring nations reconcil'd in peace.
Ormond, the firft, and all the fair may find,
In this one legend, to their fame design'd,
When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind.
N that fweet ifle where Venus keeps her court,
And every grace, and all the loves, refort;
Where either sex is form'd of fofter earth,
And takes the bent of pleasure from their birth;
There liv'd a Cyprian lord above the rest
Wife, wealthy, with a numerous iffue blefs'd.
But as no gift of fortune is fincere,
Was only wanting in a worthy heir;
His eldest born, a goodly youth to view,
Excell'd the rest in fhape, and outward fhew,
Fair, tall, his limbs with due proportion join'd,
But of a heavy, dull, degenerate mind.
His foul bely'd the features of his face ;
Beauty was there, but beauty in disgrace.
A clownish mien, a voice with rustic sound,
And ftupid eyes that ever lov'd the ground.
He look'd like nature's error, as the mind
And body were not of a piece defign'd,
But made for two, and by miftake in one were join'd.
The ruling rod, the father's forming care,
Were exercis'd in vain on wit's despair;
The more inform'd, the less he underflood,
And deeper funk by floundering in the mud.
Now fcorn'd of all, and grown the public fhame,
The people from Galefus chang'd his name,
And Cymon call'd, which fignifies a brute;
So well his name did with his nature fuit.
His father, when he found his labour loft,
And care employ'd that answer'd not the coft,
Chofe an ungrateful object to remove,
And loath'd to fee what nature made him love;
So to his country farm the fool confin'd;
Rude work well fuited with a ruftic mind.
Thus to the wilds the furdy Cymon went,
A fquire among the fwains, and pleas'd with banishment.
His corn and cattle were his only care,
And his fupreme delight, a country fair.
It happen'd on a fummer's holiday,
That to the green-wood fhade he took his way;
For Cymon fhunn'd the church, and us'd not much
His quarter-ftaff, which he could ne'er forfake,
Hung half before, and half behind his back.
He trudg'd along, unknowing what he fought,
And whistled as he went for want of thought.
By chance conducted, or by thirst constrain'd,
The deep receffes of the grove he gain'd;
Where, in a plain defended by the wood,
Crept through the matted grass a crystal flood,
By which an alabafter fountain stood :
And on the margin of the fount was laid
(Attended by her flaves) a fleeping maid.
Like Dian and her nymphs, when, tir'd with sport,
To reft by cool Eurotas they refort:
The dame herself the goddess well exprefs'd,
Not more diftinguifh'd by her purple vest,
Than by the charming features of her face,
And ev'n in flumber a fuperior grace :
Her comely limbs compos'd with decent care,
Her body fhaded with a flight cymarr;
Her bofom to the view was only bare:
Where two beginning paps were scarcely spy'd,
For yet their places were but fignify'd :
The fanning wind upon her bosom blows,
To meet the fanning wind the bosom rose ;
The fanning wind, and purling streams, continue her repofe.
The fool of nature ftood with stupid eyes,
And gaping mouth that teftify'd furprize,
Fix'd on her face, nor could remove his fight,
New as he was to love, and novice to delight:
Long mute he ftood, and leaning on his staff,
His wonder witnefs'd with an idiot laugh;
Then would have spoke, but by his glimmering fenfe
Firft found his want of words, and fear'd offence:
Doubted for what he was he fhould be known,
By his clown accent, and his country tone.
Through the rude chaos thus the running light
Shot the first ray that pierc'd the native night:
Then day and darkness in the mass were mix'd,
Till gather'd in a globe the beams were fix'd :
Laft fhone the fun, who, radiant in his fphere,
Illumin'd heaven and earth, and roll'd around the year..
So reafon in this brutal foul began,
Love made him firft fufpect he was a man;
Love made him doubt his broad barbarian found;
By love his want of words and wit he found;
That fenfe of want prepar'd the future way
To knowledge, and disclos'd the promise of a day.
What not his father's care, nor tutor's art,
Could plant with pains in his unpolish'd heart,
The best inftru&tor, love, at once infpir'd,
As barren grounds to fruitfulness are fir'd:
Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at ftrife,
Soon taught the fweet civilities of life;
His grofs material foul at once could find
Somewhat in her excelling all her kind :
Exciting a defire till then unknown,
Somewhat unfound, or found in her alone.
This made the first impreffion on his mind,
Above, but just above, the brutal kind.
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