The Poetical Works of the Right Hon. George Granville, Lord Lansdowne/7

by George Granville

LOVE.

To love is to be doom’d on earth to feel
What after death the tortur’d meet in hell.
The vulture dipping in Prometheus’ ſide
His bloody beak, with his torn liver dy’d,
Is love: The ſtone that labours up the hill,5
Mocking the lab’rer’s toil, returning ſtill,
Is love: Thoſe ſtreams where Tantalus is curſt
To ſit, and never drink, with endleſs thirſt;
Thoſe loaden boughs that with their burthen bend
To court his taſte, and yet eſcape his hand;10
All this is love, that to diſſembled joys
Invites vain men, with real grief deſtroys.12