Weep o’er the mis’ries of a wretched maid,
Who sacrific’d to man her health and fame;
Whose love and truth and trust were all repaid
By want and woe, disease and endless shame.
Curse not the poor lost wretch, who, ev’ry ill,
That proud unfeeling man can heap, sustains:
Sure she enough is curst, o’er whom his will,
Enflamed by brutal passions, boundless reigns.
Spurn not my fainting body from your door,
Here let me rest my weary weeping head;
No greater mercy would my wants implore,
My sorrows soon shall lay me with the dead.
Who now beholds, but loaths my face,
So wan and sallow, chang’d with sin and care?
Or who can any former beauty trace,
In eyes so sunk with famine and despair?
That I was virtuous once, and beauteous too,
And free from envious tongues my spotless fame;
These but torment, these but my tears renew,
These aggravate my present guilt and shame.
Expell’d by all, enforc’d by pining want,
I’ve wept and wander’d many a midnight hour;
Implor’d a pittance Lust would seldom grant,
Or sought a shelter from the driving show’r.
Oft as I rov’d, while beat the win’try storm,
Unknowing what to seek, or where to stray,
To gain relief, entic’d each hideous form,
Each hideous form contemptuous tur’d away.
Where were my virgin honours, virgin charms?
Oh! whether fled the pride I once maintain’d?
Or where the youths that woo’d me to their arms?
Or where the triumph which my beauty gain’d?
Ah! say, insidious Damon! Monster! Where?
What glory hast thou gain’d by my defeat!
Art thou more happy now I am less fair?
Or bloom thy laurels o’er my winding sheet?