| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910. | | | | A Song: ‘In vain you tell your parting lover’ | | By Matthew Prior (1664–1721) |
| | | IN vain you tell your parting lover, | |
| You wish fair winds may waft him over. | |
| Alas! what winds can happy prove, | |
| That bear me far from what I love? | |
| Alas! what dangers on the main | 5 |
| Can equal those that I sustain, | |
| From slighted vows, and cold disdain. | |
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| Be gentle, and in pity choose | |
| To wish the wildest tempests loose: | |
| That thrown again upon the coast, | 10 |
| Where first my shipwrecked heart was lost, | |
| I may once more repeat my pain, | |
| Once more in dying notes complain | |
| Of slighted vows, and cold disdain. | | | | |
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