Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Song II

SONG II.
IF ever thou didst joy to bind
Two hearts in equal pasion join'd,
O son of Venus! hear me now,
And bid Florella bless my vow.
If any bliss reserv'd for me
Thou in the leaves of fate should'st see;
If any white propitious hour,
Pregnant with hoarded joys in store;
Now, now the mighty treasure give,
In her for whom alone I live;

Cupid's accounting

The speaker wants all his future happiness paid out now in a single lump sum. He's treating love like a financial transaction—'sterling' means solid currency, and he'll 'absolve' (cancel) future debts.

In sterling love pay all the sum,
And I'll absolve the fates to come.
In all the pride of full-blown charms

Full-blown

18th-century term for a flower at peak bloom. Barbauld uses the horticultural metaphor to describe sexual maturity—Florella at her most desirable moment.

Yield her, relenting, to my arms:
Her bosom touch with soft desires,
And let her feel what she inspires.

The pivot

The poem's 'but' marks the shift from fantasy to reality. Everything before this is conditional ('if'); everything after accepts her rejection.

But, Cupid, if thine aid be vain
The dear reluctant maid to gain;
If still with cold averted eyes
She dash my hopes, and scorn my sighs;
O! grant ('tis all I ask of thee)
That I no more may change than she;

Constancy bargain

His new prayer: not to win her, but to remain as unchanging in his devotion as she is in her refusal. He's asking to be permanently stuck.

But still with duteous zeal love on,
When every gleam of hope is gone.
Leave me then alone to languish;
Think not time can heal my anguish;
Pity the woes which I endure;

Perverse prayer

The final paradox—he begs Cupid to pity his suffering but never cure it. He wants the wound to stay open.

But never, never grant a cure.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Two-Part Prayer

This is a petition to Cupid with two contradictory requests. Lines 1-16 ask for immediate romantic success—the speaker wants Florella yielding 'relenting' to his arms, her 'bosom touch'd with soft desires.' He frames this as a financial deal: pay out all my allotted happiness now, in one lump sum of 'sterling love,' and I'll cancel all future claims on fate.

But line 17's 'But' signals he knows this won't happen. The second half (lines 17-29) accepts her rejection and asks for something stranger: the ability to keep loving her without hope. 'Grant... / That I no more may change than she'—he wants to be as fixed in devotion as she is in refusal. This is the emotional logic of courtly love, where the lover's constancy becomes its own virtue, independent of success.

The poem's final lines embrace suffering as identity. He doesn't want time to heal him or Cupid to cure him—'never, never grant a cure.' The repetition hammers home his commitment to permanent lovesickness. Barbauld is writing in the voice of conventional male desire, but the poem's self-aware structure suggests she sees through the pose.

Barbauld Writing Male Desire

CONTEXT Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825) was known for political poetry and children's literature, not love lyrics. This early poem (from *Poems*, 1773) is one of her rare experiments with conventional love-song voices. She's performing male desire, not expressing her own.

The 'Song' label matters—this is meant to be sung, part of the 18th-century tradition of lyric poems set to music. The form is theatrical, a role to inhabit. Notice how literary the suffering is: he references 'the leaves of fate' (classical fortune-telling), invokes 'son of Venus' (mythological machinery), and structures his despair in neat couplets. This is lover-as-performance.

What's interesting is how Barbauld handles the erotic moment. 'In all the pride of full-blown charms / Yield her, relenting, to my arms'—the fantasy isn't just that Florella says yes, but that she feels desire herself ('let her feel what she inspires'). Even in conventional form, Barbauld gives the woman interiority. The poem knows Florella has her own will, which is why the second half exists at all.