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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  Song: “Whilst Strephon in his pride of youth”

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

Song: “Whilst Strephon in his pride of youth”

Anonymous
 
(From The Cupid, 1736)

WHILST Strephon in his pride of youth,
  To me alone profess’d
Dissembled passion, dress’d like truth,
  He triumph’d in my breast.
 
I lodged him near my yielding heart,        5
  Denied him not my arms;
Deluded by his pleasing art,
  Transported with his charms.
 
The wanderer now I lose, or share
  With every lovely maid:        10
Who makes the Heart of man her care,
  Shall have her own betray’d.
 
Our charms on them we vainly prove,
  And think we conquest gain;
Where one a victim falls to love,        15
  A thousand tyrants reign.