Page:Cherry and the sloe.pdf/9

Rh To be outwitted by a Page, Encreas’d all my care. O Dido, Cupido Abandon’d thee, and so He wins me, then shuns me, Alas! why does he so!

With meagre visage, pale and wan, More like an atomy than man I wither’d fast away; As wax before the fire I felt My heart within my bosom melt, And piece and piece decay. To quench the flames with fond desire, And sighs I set about, But still the more I blew the fire, The bolder it broke out. My heart then did start then The fiery flames to flee, Now throbbing, now sobbing, To leap at Liberty.

But O, alas! it was in vain, Perforce it still must suffer pain, Imprison’d in my breast; With sighs and sorrow overset, Like fish entangled in the net, Impatiently opprest, Who thinks, in vain, to strive by strength Still struggling fall for breath, Which profits nought, alas, at last, But hast’ning on her death; With wringing and springing, The faster still is she; There I so did lie so, My death advancing me.

The more I wrestle with the wind, The fainter still myself I find,