Classic Poem

When I see the bright nymph who my heart does enthral,
When I view her soft eyes and her languishing air,
Her merit so great, my own merit so small,
It makes me adore, and it makes me despair.

But when I consider, she squanders on fools
All those treasures of beauty with which she is stor'd,
My fancy it damps, my passion it cools,
And it makes me despise what before I ador'd.

Thus sometimes I despair, and sometimes I despise:
I love, and I hate, but I never esteem:
The passion grows up when I view her bright eyes,
Which my rival's destroy when I look upon them.

How wisely does Nature things so diff'rent unite!
In such odd compositions our safety is found;
As the blood of a scorpion's a cure for the bite,
So her folly makes whole whom her beauty does wound.