TO LESBIA'S SPARROW .

Sparrow! my nymph's delicious pleasure.
Who with thee, her pretty treasure,
Fanciful in frolic plays
Thousand, thousand wanton ways;
And fluttering, lays to panting rest
On the soft orbings of her breast;
Thy beak with finger-tip incites
And dallies with thy becks and bites;
When my beauty, my desire,
Feels her darling whim inspire,
With nameless triflings such as these
To snatch, I trow, a tiny ease
For some keen fever of the breast,
While passion toys itself to rest;
I would that happy lady be,
And so in pastime sport with thee
And lighten love's soft agony.
The sweet resource were bliss untold,
Dear as that apple of ripe gold
Which, by the nimble virgin found,
Unloost the zone that had so fast been bound!