Classic Poem

Now has rough winter reassum'd his reign,
And fogs and frost alike infest the plain;
Each tree has lost the verdant hue of spring;
To charm the ear no more the warblers sing;
No more the distant hills with flocks are white,
No nymphs and swains now gambol to the sight:
The shepherd keeps his flocks within the fold,
Then seeks his straw-thatch'd cot secure from cold;
Close to the blazing hearth he sits him down,
And quaffs his jug, each anxious thought to drown;
While wise and ragged brats fill up the space,
Pale want and penury staring in each face.

Say, can my Delia like such scenes as these?
Sure cold and poverty can never please!
Haste then to town, and leave those scenes, my fair;
Haste, and the town's still varying pleasure share;
The stage shall bid a thousand prospects rise,
And artificial spring salute thy eyes.

Perhaps your heart, susceptable of woe,
Likes the soft scenes of Southern, Otway, Rowe ;
Haste, and enjoy that heaven-like pleasure here;
Powell shall draw the sympathetic tear:
By rising sighs thy passions will be shewn,
Thy bosom heave with sorrows not its own.
Then to asswage the too strong tide of grief,
The comic muse steps in to your relief;
Ring, Woodward, Garrick , all their powers exert.
And spleen, or dull-bred care, away divert.
Fancy her art shall shew in pantomime,
And all alike consent to kill old time.

Come then, my Delia , leave the rustic throng;
Come and bring love and tenderness along:
Oh! haste, my love, I long to view thy charms,
I long to sold thy beauties in my arms;
To gaze with rapture, while my sighs explain
My heart felt passion, and my pleasing pain.

Ah! Delia , come, and ease my tortur'd mind,
Nor share the folly wedded to thy kind;
Inconstant Woman is a proverb grown,
And vast examples make that folly known:
Oh! let me not compare you with the rest,
But come at once, and ease my anxious breast:
Come, and by one great act your conduct prove,
And shew that Woman can be true, in love.

Alas! I rave! — — I should thy worth defend,
For thou hast been my guardian, wife, and friend;
Some other motive keeps thee from my sight;
Some good, for goodness still was thy delight:
To cloath the naked, or to feed the poor,
To keep the tyrant landlord from the door;
To soften misery, to seek the bed
Where age, or sickness, lays the aching head;
To palliate each distress, and every woe,
And trace the path to heaven ere you go.

If this employs you, I must not repine,
But curb my passion and my suit decline:
Yet, 'midst thy charities remember me,
Think how I languish thy dear form to see;
Think on my lonely night, my lonely day;
All pleasure's tasteless while thou art away.
Then speed thy pious work; and haste, my fair,
And bring thy love, that cordial for despair.