Part 2 — SONG
Reading edition
In vain you tell your parting lover, You wish fair winds may waft him over. Alas! what winds can happy prove That bear me far from what I love? Alas! what dangers on the main Can equal those that I sustain From slighted vows, and cold disdain?
Be gentle, and in pity choose To wish the wildest tempests loose: That, thrown again upon the coast, Where first my shipwrecked heart was lost, I may once more repeat my pain; Once more in dying notes complain Of slighted vows and cold disdain.
Matthew Prior [1664-1721]