Classic Poem

I WAS foretold your rebel sex
Nor love nor pity knew;
And with what scorn you use to vex
Poor hearts that humbly sue.
Yet I believed, to crown our pain,
Could we the fortress win,
The happy lover sure should gain
A paradise within:
I thought Love's plagues, like dragons, sat
Only to fright us at the gate.

But I did enter, and enjoy
What happy lovers prove;
For I could kiss, and sport, and toy,
And taste those sweets of love,
Which, had they but a lasting state,
Or if in Celia's breast
The force of love might not abate,
Jove were too mean a guest:
But now her breach of faith far more
Afflicts, than did her scorn before.

Hard fate! to have been once possess'd
As victor of a heart,
Achieved with labour and unrest,
And then forced to depart.
If the stout foe will not resign,
When I besiege a town,
I lose but what was never mine;
But he that is cast down
From enjoy'd beauty, feels a woe
Only deposed kings can know.