Love

Daphne: A Song

by John Cunningham 1729–1773

From Poems, Chiefly Pastoral (1766)

Love

No longer, Daphne, I admire
The graces in thine eyes;
Continu'd coyness kills desire,
And famish'd passion dies.

Three tedious years I've sigh'd in vain,
Nor could my vows prevail;
With all the rigours of disdain,
You scorn'd my amorous tale.

When Celia cry'd, how senseless she,
That has such vows refus'd;
Had Damon giv'n his heart to me,
It had been kinder us'd.

The man's a fool that pines and dies,
Because a woman's coy:
The gentle bliss, that one denies,
A thousand will enjoy.

Such charming words, so void of art,
Surprizing rapture gave;
And tho' the maid subdu'd my heart,
It ceas'd to be a slave.

A wretch condemn'd, shall Daphne prove;
While blest without restraint,
In the sweet calendar of love
My Celia stands—a saint.

✦ ✦ ✦

Text from the Eighteenth Century Collections Online / ECCO-TCP transcription (TCP K093533), Poems, Chiefly Pastoral (1766).

MLA

Cunningham, John. “Daphne: A Song.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/cunningham_j/62/.

Chicago

Cunningham, John. “Daphne: A Song.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/cunningham_j/62/.

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