FANCIES FRREEDOM
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WHom have I chosen to my love,
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and no more I crave,
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And I not having whom I love,
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what do I receive?
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Riches and Honour both,
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are but misery,
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When the Mind is not fulfill'd
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and Fancy is not free.
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Contentment yields the greatest joy,
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none can it deny,
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And I not having whom I love,
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what content have I?
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Restraint doth take away,
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what in love might be,
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Since true love ceaseth to be love,
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and Fancy is not free.
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Have not the Birds of the Air,
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freedom at their will,
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For to choose their own true Mate
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and all their thoughts fulfil?
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Why then, should I then,
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who reasonable be,
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Be thus oppressed with my love,
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and have not Fancy free?
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Doth not the languishing of sprits
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often procure our Death?
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And Melancholy fits of Love,
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extinguish lovers breath?
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How then but in sadness
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and mourning can I be:
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When my love is bounded in,
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and Fancy is not free?
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The eye gives object to the love,
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when that it is crost,
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It turns to mourning weeping Tears,
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lamenting what is lost:
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The eye doth mourn, the heart doth burn
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and dwines exceedingly:
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Which puts a period to my life
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and makes my Fancy die.
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'Twixt those extreams of jeopardy
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doth my affection ly:
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Life bids me stay, love to imploy,
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but restrant bid be die.
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'Twixt flames I burn, and on my urn
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my ashes you shall see,
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That I did live because I lov'd,
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and had not Fancy free.
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WHen I by Fancy first did move,
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I made that endless choice,
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With Protestations for to prove,
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most constant in all noise.
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My whole Engine I did encline
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(that all the World might see)
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To have my Love unite to thine,
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and make my Fancy free.
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Heavens hath decreed that thus my smart
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be plung'd in loves desire:
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And blind Cupid with his dart,
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hath set my heart on fire:
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No crosses, nor losses,
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shall ever alter me,
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Nor yet no worldly wishes
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shall make my Fancy die.
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I value nothing that I know,
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to that choise I did make
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For which I gladly undergo
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all crosses for her sake:
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Then present or absent
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she still my Love shall be,
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Which only can give me content,
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and set my Fancy free.
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FAncies freedom's good indeed,
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but fools we must debar,
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For their fantastick Female Sex,
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doth still at reason scar,
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For their unsolid brainsick wits;
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love such varietie.
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That reason cannot them permit,
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to have their Fancy free.
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Birds that are loyal in their mind
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when that they do confer,
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They match according to their kind,
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and so they do not err:
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The Female Sex are worse than those,
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loves infidelitie,
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That reason cannot them permit,
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to have their Fancy free.
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The heart of Man's entirely bent,
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without deceit or craft,
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And when of Love it gets the stamp
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it holdeth fast the shaft,
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But Womens heart two doors they have
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and let these darts out-flie,
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That no Man weep much thereat
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should they have Fancy free.
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Loves cryes contentment is a bless,
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and when the same you have,
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When ye have gotten which ye list,
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yet have ye more to crave.
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Even that which is your bliss tonight
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tomorrow makes you die
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And so your life is endless strife
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should ye have Fancy free.
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