Classic Poem

Fantastick Phillis! cease to please,
Or else consent to give me Ease;
Pox! of your dull Platonick Schemes,
'Tis wasting Life in idle Dreams:
And quitting solid Joys, to prove
What crowns the Fairy Land of Love.
Since Nature to so short a Date
Has circumscrib'd the Lover's State,
To Raptures, that so soon are past,
The sooner let us wisely hast.
For Love for Action grows less fit
For want of exercising it,
Ev'n as our Limbs and Reason too,
Less us'd, less useful to us grow.
Beauty, like Wealth, becomes our Pain,
When we the Use of it restrain;
We worst are treated by that Feast,
Which we may see, but must not taste.
To hunger in the Sight of Meat,
Yet not be suffer'd once to eat,
As old, and sacred Poets tell,
Was Tantalus 's Curse in Hell;
For gazing kindles up Desire,
And sets the eager Soul on Fire;
But then to gaze, and not enjoy,
Will pine us like th' Ovidian Boy,
Till we by painful, slow Decay,
To Streams, or Shadows, melt away.

Our Life, our Pleasures to improve,
Must be to give a Loose to Love;
Not with vain Schemes our Bliss delay,
And for the happy Morrow stay,
But seize the Joy, and live to Day.
For Hope, that still our Bliss suspends,
Like boasting, unperforming Friends,
Too oft protracts us but to get
The Time our credulous Hearts to cheat.
I, who profess myself to be
Blind Cupid 's faithful Votary,
By Works, not Faith alone, would prove
The blind Devotion of my Love;
Of Joys, in ebbing Life make sure,
Since Love, nor Life, can long endure.
And since if we procrastinate,
And lose th' indulgent Hour of Fate,
In Love, as Faith, the blest Occasion,
Once lost, will turn our Condemnation.