Classic Poem

Nymph

What busie Cares too timely born
 (Young Swain!) disturb thy sleep?
Thy early sighs awake the Morn,
 Thy tears teach her to weep.

Shepherd

Sorrows fair Nymph are full alone
 Nor counsel can endure.

Nymph

Yet thine disclose, for until known
 Sickness admits no Cure.

Shepherd

My Griefs are such as but to hear
 Would poyson all thy Joyes,
The Pitty which thou seem'st to bear
 My Health, thine own destroyes.

Nymph

How can diseased Minds infect?
 Say what thy Grief doth move!

Shepherd

Call up thy vertue to protect
 Thy Heart, and know 'twas Love.

Nymph

Fond Swain!

Shepherd

By which I have been long
Destin'd to meet with Hate.

Nymph

Fy Shepherd fy: thou dost Love wrong,
 To call thy Crime thy Fate.

Shepherd

Alas what Cunning could decline,
 What Force can Love repel?

Nymph

Yet, there's a Way to unconfine
 Thy Heart.

Shepherd

For pitty tell.

Nymph

Choose one whose Love may be allur'd
 By thine: who ever knew
Inveterate Diseases cur'd
 But by receiving new?

Shepherd

All will like her my Soul perplex.

Nymph

 Yet try.

Shepherd

Oh could there be,
But any softness in that Sex,
 I'd wish it were in Thee.

Nymph

Thy Prayer is heard: learn now t'esteem
 The kindness She hath shown
Who thy lost freedom to redeem
 Hath forfeited her own.