Works

Whence comes it Phillis since we met,
Our Sylvan Games to celebrate;
When Sports went round—with magick Mien
You tript it lightly o’er the Green,
That something ever since that Day
Upon my Spirits seems to prey?

The pleasing Sense of sweet Repose
No more my beating Bosom knows;
And ev’ry Symptom seems to prove
The Melancholy Truth—I love:
Nay never frown, for if I do,
Assure yourself—it is not You.

In former days when I lived in Dean Street, particularly the last year my Father lived, & during the interval between his Death & my Marriage, we were very often visited by Herbert Lawrence; Brother to General² who courted Miss Rich & died in America³: He was a capital musician I believe, & played sweetly on the German Flute; he never could make me Sing, but nothing would serve him but I must at least write a Song, & he would set it to Musick: I looked over Boileau, and imitating his Epigram of Tout me fait peine & depuis un Jour, &c. I wrote the following Lines which he set sure enough & Beard sung it one Spring at Ranelagh.

Hester Thrale

What is it, say, what is it, pray,
That gives me so much pain?
If love is gone, I carry on,
And hope to love again.

The rose from thorns, the bee from flowers,
The lily from the thorn,
Then why not I, for what made I
In love, since I was born?

If tears will last, if care is past,
If I have lost a heart,
One heart may gain a love again
Though never the same heart.

Footnotes

1. A surgeon and apothecary (1722-1797).↩︎
2. Charles Lawrence, Govenor of Nova Scotia 1753-1760.↩︎
3. In 1760 of pneumonia, after over-indulging in a Nova Scotian banquet.↩︎