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Songs Set To Music: 4. Set By Mr. Smith

By Matthew Prior

Topics: classic

Come, weep no more, for 'tis in vain; Torment not thus your pretty heart; Think, Flavia, we may meet again, As well as that we now must part. You sigh and weep; the gods neglect That precious dew your eyes let fall; Our joy and grief with like respect They mind, and that is not at all. We pray, in hopes they will be kind, As if they did regard our state; They hear, and the return we find Is, that no prayers can alter Fate. Then clear your brow, and look more gay; Do not yourself to grief resign; Who knows but that those powers may The pair they now have parted join? But since they have thus cruel been, And could such constant lovers sever, I dare not trust, lest, now they're in, They should divide us two for ever. Then, Flavia, come, and let us grieve, Remembering, though, upon what score; This our last parting look believe, Believe we must embrace no more. Yet should our sun shine out at last, And Fortune, without more deceit, Throw but one reconciling cast, To make two wandering lovers meet; How great then would our pleasures be To find heaven kinder than believed, And we, who had no hopes to see Each other, to be thus deceived! But say, should heaven bring no relief; Suppose our sun should never rise; Why, then, what's due to such a grief We've paid already with our eyes.

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"Come, weep no more, for 'tis in vain;..."

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Author:Matthew Prior

"Come, weep no more, for 'tis in vain;..." by Matthew Prior

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Matthew Prior

About Matthew Prior

Matthew Prior (1664–1721) was an English poet and diplomat. His poem "Alma: or, The Progress of the Mind" and his epitaph "Nobles and heralds, by your leave" are witty Augustan verse.

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