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Jonathan Swift - Louisa To Strephon
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Ah! Strephon, how can you despise
Her, who without thy pity dies!
To Strephon I have still been true,
And of as noble blood as you;
Fair issue of the genial bed,
A virgin in thy bosom bred:
Embraced thee closer than a wife;
When thee I leave, I leave my life.
Why should my shepherd take amiss,
That oft I wake thee with a kiss?
Yet you of every kiss complain;
Ah! is not love a pleasing pain?
A pain which every happy night
You cure with ease and with delight;
With pleasure, as the poet sings,
Too great for mortals less than kings.
  Chloe, when on thy breast I lie,
Observes me with revengeful eye:
If Chloe o`er thy heart prevails,
She`ll tear me with her desperate nails;
And with relentless hands destroy
The tender pledges of our joy.
Nor have I bred a spurious race;
They all were born from thy embrace.
  Consider, Strephon, what you do;
For, should I die for love of you,
I`ll haunt thy dreams, a bloodless ghost;
And all my kin, (a numerous host,)
Who down direct our lineage bring
From victors o`er the Memphian king;
Renown`d in sieges and campaigns,
Who never fled the bloody plains:
Who in tempestuous seas can sport,
And scorn the pleasures of a court;
From whom great Sylla found his doom,
Who scourged to death that scourge of Rome,
Shall on thee take a vengeance dire;
Thou like Alcides shalt expire,
When his envenom`d shirt he wore,
And skin and flesh in pieces tore.
Nor less that shirt, my rival`s gift,
Cut from the piece that made her shift,
Shall in thy dearest blood be dyed,
And make thee tear thy tainted hide.
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