A Song by Alexander Webster

Oh! how could I venture to love one like thee,
Or thou not despise a poor conquest like me!
On lords thy admirers could look with disdain,
And tho’ I was nothing, yet pity my pain!

You said, when they teaz’d you with nonsense and dress,
When real the passion, the vanity’s less;
You saw thro’ that silence, which others despise,
And while beaux were prating, read love in my eyes.

Oh! where is the nymph that like thee ne’er can cloy,
Whose with can enliven the dull pause of joy;
And when the sweet transport is all at an end,
From beautiful mistress, turn sensible friend!

When I see thee I love thee, but hearing adore,
I wonder, and think you a woman no more;
Till mad with admiring I cannot contain,
And kissing those lips find you woman again.

In all that I write I’ll they judgment require,
Thy taste shall correct, what thy love did inspire;
I’ll kiss thee, and press thee, till youth is all o’er,
And then live on friendship, when passion’s no more.

From: “A Song” in The London Magazine, Or, Gentelman’s Monthly Intelligencer, Volume 16, 1747, p. 547.
(https://books.google.com.au/books?id=8foRAAAAYAAJ)

Date: 1747

By: Alexander Webster (1708-1784)