The Complaint

Mark Akenside

    Away! away!
  Tempt me no more, insidious Love:
      Thy soothing sway
  Long did my youthful bosom prove:
  At length thy treason is discern’d,
  At length some dear-bought caution earn’d:
Away! nor hope my riper age to move.

      I know, I see
  Her merit. Needs it now be shown,
      Alas! to me?
  How often, to myself unknown,
  The graceful, gentle, virtuous maid
  Have I admired! How often said—
What joy to call a heart like hers one’s own!

      But, flattering god,
  O squanderer of content and ease
      In thy abode
  Will care’s rude lesson learn to please?
  O say, deceiver, hast thou won
  Proud Fortune to attend thy throne,
Or placed thy friends above her stern decrees?

Next 10 Poems

• Mark Akenside : The Nightingale
• Anna Akhmatova : Celebrate
• Anna Akhmatova : Crucifix
• Anna Akhmatova : Everything
• Anna Akhmatova : For Osip Mandelstam
• Anna Akhmatova : How Can You Bear To Look At The Neva?
• Anna Akhmatova : I Don't Know If You're Alive Or Dead
• Anna Akhmatova : I Hear The Oriole's Always-grieving Voice
• Anna Akhmatova : I Taught Myself To Live Simply
• Anna Akhmatova : I Wrung My Hands

Previous 10 Poems

• Mark Akenside : Pleasures Of Imagination, The
• Mark Akenside : Ode To The Country Gentlemen Of England
• Mark Akenside : Ode On A Sermon Against Glory
• Mark Akenside : Nightingale, The
• Mark Akenside : Hymn To Science
• Mark Akenside : For A Column At Runnymede
• Mark Akenside : Complaint, The
• Mark Akenside : Amoret
• Conrad Aiken : Zudora
• Conrad Aiken : Violet Moore And Bert Moore