Matthew Prior (1664-1721)
To Chloe Jealous
1Dear Chloe, how blubber'd is that pretty face;
2 Thy cheek all on fire, and thy hair all uncurl'd:
3Prythee quit this caprice; and (as old Falstaff says)
4 Let us e'en talk a little like folks of this world.
5How canst thou presume, thou hast leave to destroy
6 The beauties, which Venus but lent to thy keeping?
7Those looks were design'd to inspire love and joy:
8 More ord'nary eyes may serve people for weeping.
9To be vext at a trifle or two that I writ,
10 Your judgment at once, and my passion you wrong:
11You take that for fact, which will scarce be found wit:
12 Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song?
13What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write, shows
14 The diff'rence there is betwixt nature and art:
15I court others in verse; but I love thee in prose:
16 And they have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart.
17The god of us verse-men (you know, child) the Sun,
18 How after his journeys he sets up his rest:
19If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run;
20 At night he declines on his Thetis's breast.
21So when I am wearied with wand'ring all day,
22 To thee my delight in the evening I come:
23No matter what beauties I saw in my way;
24 They were but my visits, but thou art my home.
25Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war;
26 And let us like Horace and Lydia agree:
27For thou art a girl as much brighter than her,
28 As he was a poet sublimer than me.
Notes
3] Cf. II Henry IV, V.iii.96.
18] Sun: Phoebus, god of both the sun and poetry.
20] Thetis: a goddess of the sea.
26] Cf. Horace, Odes, III, xxii.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Matthew Prior, Poems on Several Occasions (London: J. Tonson and J. Barber, 1718). F-10 499 Fisher Rare Book Library
First publication date:
1704
RPO poem editor: N. J. Endicott
RP edition: 2RP.1.525; RPO 1996-2000.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/11
Rhyme: abab
Other poems by Matthew Prior
