Huntſmen renew the chaſe they lately ran;
And generals fight again their battles won.
Spectres and furies haunt the murth’rers dreams;
Grants, or diſgraces, are the courtiers themes.
The miſer ſpies a thief, or ſome new hoard,
The cit’s a knight, the ſycophant a lord.
Thus fancy’s in the wild diſtraction loſt
With what we moſt abhor, or covet moſt.
But of all paſſions that our dreams controul,
Love prints the deepeſt image in the ſoul;
For vigorous fancy, and warm blood diſpenſe
Pleaſures ſo lively, that they rival ſenſe.
Such are the tranſports of a willing maid,
Not yet by time and place to act betray’d.
Whom ſpies, or ſome faint virtue force to fly
That ſcene of joy, which yet ſhe dies to try.
’Till fancy bawds, and by myſterious charms
Brings the dear object to her longing arms;
Unguarded then ſhe melts, acts fierce delight,
And curſes the returns of envious light.
In ſuch bleſs’d dreams Biblis enjoys a flame;
Which waking ſhe deteſts, and dares not name.
Ixion gives a looſe to his wild love,
And in his airy viſions cuckolds Jove.
Honours and ſtate before this phantom fall;
For ſleep, like death its image, equals all.
Our author likewiſe wrote ſome political pieces in proſe, particularly an Eſſay on the preſent Intereſt of England, 1701. To which are added, The Proceedings of the Houſe of Commons in 1677, upon the French King’s Progreſs in Flanders. This piece is reprinted in Cogan’s Collection of Tracts, called Lord Somers’s Collection.
