How oft and fruitless have I strove to move
Unfeeling beauty with the pangs of love;
As rose your breast with captivating grace,
And heighten'd charms flew blushing to your face;
Insulting charms! that gave a fiercer wound,
Fond as I lay, and prostrate on the ground.
Heavens! with what scorn you strove my suit to meet,
Frown'd with your eyes, and spurn'd me with your feet!
To bleeding love such hard returns you gave,
As barbarous rocks that dash the pressing wave.
O could your looks have turn'd my hapless fate,
And frown'd my short-liv'd passion into hate;
Then had no scattering breeze my sorrows known,
Nor vale responsive had prolong'd the moan;
Then had those lips ne'er learnt their woeful tale,
Nor death yet cloath'd them in eternal pale.