To J.G. On the News of His Marriage

BY EPHELIA

My Love? alas! I must not call you Mine,
But to your envy’d Bride that Name resign:
I must forget your lovely melting Charms,
And be for ever Banisht from your Arms:
For ever? oh! the Horror of that Sound!
It gives my bleeding Heart a deadly wound:
While I might hope, although my Hope was vain,
It gave some Ease to my unpitty’d Pain,
But now your Hymen doth all Hope exclude,
And but to think is Sin; yet you intrude
On every Thought; if I but close my Eyes,
Methinks your pleasing Form besides me lies;
With every Sigh I gently breath your Name,
Yet no ill Thoughts pollute my hallow’d Flame;
’Tis pure and harmless, as a Lambent Fire,
And never mingled with a warm Desire:
All I have now to ask of Bounteous Heaven,
Is, that your Perjuries may be forgiven:
That she who you have with your Nuptials blest,
As She’s the Happiest Wife, may prove the Best:
That all our Joys may light on you alone,
Then I can be contented to have none:
And never wish that you shou’d kinder be,
Than now and then, to cast a Thought on Me:
And, Madam, though the Conquest you have won,
Over my Strephon, has my hopes undone;
I’le daily beg of Heaven, he may be
Kinder to You, than he has been to Me.