Classic Poem

Tell me, my Heart! fond slave of hopeless love,
And doom'd its woes without its joys to prove,
Canst thou endure thus calmly to erase
The dear dear image of thy Delia's face?
Canst thou exclude that habitant divine
To place some meaner idle in her shrine?
O task for feeble Reason too severe!
O lesson nought could teach me but despair!
Must I forbid my eyes that heav'nly sight
They 'ave view'd so oft' with languishing delight?
Must my ears shun that voice whose charming sound
Seem'd to relieve while it increas'd my wound?
O Waller! Petrarch! you who tun'd the lyre
To the soft notes of elegant desire,
Tho' Sidney to a rival gave her charms,
Tho' Laura dying left her lover's arms,
Yet were your pains less exquisite than mine;
'Tis easier far to lose than to resign!