Three Songs - Poem by Anne Kingsmill Finch

LOVE, thou art best of Human Joys,
Our chiefest Happiness below;
All other Pleasures are but Toys,
Musick without Thee is but Noise,
And Beauty but an empty Show.
Heav'n, who knew best what Man wou'd move,
And raise his Thoughts above the Brute;
Said, Let him Be, and let him Love;
That must alone his Soul improve,
Howe'er Philosophers dispute.

II

Quickly, Delia, Learn my Passion,
Lose not Pleasure, to be Proud;
Courtship draws on Observation,
And the Whispers of the Croud.

Soon or late you'll hear a Lover,
Nor by Time his Truth can prove;
Ages won't a Heart discover,
Trust, and so secure my Love

III

'TIS strange, this Heart within my breast,
Reason opposing, and her Pow'rs,
Cannot one gentle Moment rest,
Unless it knows what's done in Yours.
In vain I ask it of your Eyes,
Which subt'ly would my Fears controul;
For Art has taught them to disguise,
Which Nature made t' explain the Soul.

In vain that Sound, your Voice affords,
Flatters sometimes my easy Mind;
But of too vast Extent are Words
In them the Jewel Truth to find.

Then let my fond Enquiries cease,
And so let all my Troubles end:
For, sure, that Heart shall ne'er know Peace,
Which on Anothers do's depend.