To J.G. On the News of His Marriage

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.