[Page 71]

A POETICAL OR SOUND-HEARTED LOVER'S FAREWELL TO HIS MISTRESS.

1 FAIR Nymph, who dost my fate controul
2 And reignest Mistress of my soul,
3 Where thou all bright in beauty's ray
4 Hast held a long tyrannic sway!
5 They who the hardest rule maintain,
6 In their commands do still refrain
7 From what impossible must prove,
8 Yet thou hast bade me cease to love.
9 Ah! when the magnet's power is o'er,
10 The needle then will point no more,
11 And when no verdure clothes the spring,
12 The tuneful birds forget to sing;
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13 But thou, all sweet and heavenly fair,
14 Wouldst have thy swain from love forbear.
15 In pity let thine own dear hand
16 A death's-wound to this bosom send:
17 This tender heart of purest faith
18 May then resign thee with its breath;
19 And in the sun-beam of thine eye
20 A proud and willing victim die.
21 But since thou wilt not have it so,
22 Far from thy presence will I go;
23 Far from my heart's dear bliss I'll stray,
24 Since I no longer can obey.
25 In foreign climes I'll henceforth roam
26 No more to hail my native home:
27 To foreign swains I'll pour my woe,
28 In foreign plains my tears shall flow;
29 By murmuring stream and shady grove
30 Shall other echoes tell my love;
31 And richer flowers of vivid hue
32 Upon my grave shall other maidens strew.
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33 Adieu, dear Phillis! shouldst thou e'er
34 Some soft and plaintive story hear
35 Of hapless youth, who vainly strove
36 With wayward fate, and died for love,
37 O think of me! nor then deny
38 The gentle tribute of a sigh.

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Title (in Source Edition): A POETICAL OR SOUND-HEARTED LOVER'S FAREWELL TO HIS MISTRESS.
Themes: relations between the sexes
Genres: address

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Source edition

Baillie, Joanna, 1762-1851. Fugitive Verses. By Joanna Baillie, author of “Dramas on the Passions,“ etc. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXL., 1840, pp. 71-73.  (Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [40.17].)

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Typography, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been cautiously modernized. The source of the text is given and all significant editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. This ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Other works by Joanna Baillie