TO

ZILLAH MADONNA WATTS

THIS VOLUME

IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY

INSCRIBED.

Thou dost tell ne where to borrow
Comfort in the midst of sorrow;
Mak'st the desolatest place
To thy presence be a grace,
And the blackest discontents
Be thy fairest ornaments.
Poesy! thou sweet'st content
That e'er Heaven to mortals lent,
Though they as a trifle leave thee,
Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee;
Though thou be to them a scorn
That to nought but earth are born;
Let my life no longer be,
Than I am in love with thee!
Though our wise ones call thee madness,
Let me never taste of gladness,
If I love not thy maddest fits
More than all their greatest wits.
And though some, too seeming holy,
Do account thy raptures folly;
Thou dost teach me to condemn
What makes knaves and fools of them!

WITHER.

ADVERTISEMENT.

A LIMITED Edition of this Volume was printed for distribution among my poetical friends more than two years ago, certainly with little expectation, on my part, that it would ever be considered worthy of a wider diffusion. The favourable notice it attracted from several respectable quarters, at length induced me to believe that its publication would be regarded as an act of very pardonable presumption; and to the flattering success which attended the experiment is entirely to be