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SEMICHORUS O tyrant Love! hast thou possest | |
| The prudent, learned, and virtuous breast? | |
| Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim, | |
| And arts but soften us to feel thy flame. | |
| Love, soft intruder, enters here, | 5 |
| But ent’ring learns to be sincere. | |
| Marcus with blushes owns he loves, | |
| And Brutus tenderly reproves. | |
| Why, Virtue, dost thou blame desire | |
| Which Nature hath imprest? | 10 |
| Why, Nature, dost thou soonest fire | |
| The mild and gen’rous breast? | |
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CHORUS Love’s purer flames the Gods approve; | |
| The Gods and Brutus bend to love: | |
| Brutus for absent Portia sighs, | 15 |
| And sterner Cassius melts at Junia’s eyes. | |
| What is loose love? a transient gust, | |
| Spent in a sudden storm of lust, | |
| A vapour fed from wild desire, | |
| A wand’ring, self-consuming fire. | 20 |
| But Hymen’s kinder flames unite, | |
| And burn for ever one; | |
| Chaste as cold Cynthia’s virgin light, | |
| Productive as the sun. | |
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SEMICHORUS O source of ev’ry social tie, | 25 |
| United wish, and mutual joy! | |
| What various joys on one attend, | |
| As son, as father, brother, husband, friend? | |
| Whether his hoary sire he spies, | |
| While thousand grateful thoughts arise; | 30 |
| Or meets his spouse’s fonder eye, | |
| Or views his smiling progeny; | |
| What tender passions take their turns! | |
| What home-felt raptures move! | |
| His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns, | 35 |
| With Rev’rence, Hope, and Love. | |
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CHORUS Hence guilty joys, distastes, surmises, | |
| Hence false tears, deceits, disguises, | |
| Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises, | |
| Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine! | 40 |
| Purest Love’s unwasting treasure, | |
| Constant faith, fair hope, long leisure, | |
| Days of ease, and nights of pleasure, | |
| Sacred Hymen! these are thine. | |
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