The Pope Anthology: 1701-1744

Tasteless are grown my former joys!
Wit is but folly; Music, noise!
So unattentive is my mind,

In crowds a solitude I find!

While all my friends are joyous seen,
Musing I sit. 'Ha! what ails BEN?'
One cries, "Tis pride!'; another, 'spleen!'"
Reproached thus, I'll go read! But what?
SHAKESPEARE is lifeless! MILTON, flat!
Successive pleasures thus I try,

From thought to thought for comfort fly;

But none I find!

Nothing can please!

Books and acquaintance only tease!

So restless is my soul, I own

Life is itself a burthen grown!

What means all this? Where can it end?

Tell me, my Charmer and my friend!'

'What,' said EUNESIA, 'what means this? Are you so dull, you cannot guess? Fly, my AMINTOR! to my arms!

(Where you've confessed a thousand charms!) Fly to my arms! You'll quickly find 'Tis absence only stings your mind! Fly to my arms! A kiss I'll give That shall your gaiety revive;

And make you own, you wish to live!'

THE MUTUAL SYMPTOMS.

'АH! who, in all those happy plains,
With COLIN may compare!

A Youth beloved of all the Swains;
Admired by all the Fair.

I think he 's free from artful wiles :
For oft, with tearful eye,

He fondly looks at me, and smiles.
He does! I know not Why?

'He pressed my hand.

I blushed and sighed;

Yet hope he did not see!

And then to speak he vainly tried;
But gently sighed, like me!

Methinks, this wary breast should know

If COLIN feigned the sigh;

Yet when he 's named, it flutters so!
It does! I know now Why?

Say, gentle God! whose mighty laws
Prevail o'er Nymph and Swain ;
O, shew my heart the secret cause
Of COLIN's tender pain!

Say rather, why this heart intreats
The cause of COLIN's woe!

And why it flutters! why it beats!
Alas! too well I know!'

THE END OF THE POPE ANTHOLOGY.

FIRST LINES AND NOTES.

Many of these Poems became immediately popular; and appeared in other contemporary editions than those here quoted, often with great variations in the texts.

All the Works herein quoted, were published in London; unless otherwise stated.
Where a text is found associated with music, (M.) is put after its date.

&c., 1727.

Rosa

Belinda! see, from yonder flowers
ANON. In The Spectator, No. 473,
September 2, 1712.

Beneath a myrtle's verdant shade
M. PRIOR. Poems, 1709.

Beneath some hoary mountain....
Rt. Hon. JOSEPH ADDISON.
mond, 1707.

Blest as th' immortal Gods is he..
A. PHILIPS. The Spectator, No. 229,
Nov. 22, 1711. The text is that of
Pastorals, &c., 1748. From SAPPHO.
For Mrs. A. BEHN'S version, see
Vol. VII, 162.

But anxious cares the pensive
A. POPE. Rape of the Lock, 5th Ed.,
1718.

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