Though hope itself be gone, Ulysses dead,
Yet would she wait and watch till life be fled.
Aye, and Briseis, where her loved one lay,
Bruised her fair cheek, and tore her locks away;
With many a tear the captive wail'd her lord,
Wash'd his poor mangled corpse in Xanthus'

ford,

And the huge hero's dust at length found rest

In the slight haven of a maiden's breast,
She who still loved him, reft of all beside,
Of parents-e'en of her he call'd his bride.
True sons, and loyal, then Achaia bore,
And virtue flourish'd in the midst of war;
But thee a single night can faithless prove,
A single day refute thy vaunted love;
And thou, gay reveller, amid the wine
Wouldst taunt in bitter scorn this love of mine;
And court the man who once deserted thee-
Heaven give thee joy of such a boor as he!

Whose prayers were those that snatch'd thee from the dead,

When death's dark wave was closing o'er thy head, When all thy weeping friends stood round thee

there ?

Where was this gallant then, false Cynthia, where? What wouldst thou say if war should bid me fly, O'er far-off seas, to India's burning sky?

Some shift, some falsehood then would serve thy

turn

This is a task that women love to learn.

The fickle blast that shifts the shoaling seas,
The leaves that tremble in the southern breeze,
Less frail are they than woman's faith, and all
The trivial whims that change her love to gall.

Since this, then, is thy pleasure, I will flee, Sharpen, ye Loves, your deadliest bolts for me, Quick, pierce this breast, and rob me of my life, No meagre triumph nor inglorious strife. Witness, ye stars, ye frosty winds of morn, Thou stealthy door that welcomed me forlorn, Nought else I loved like thee, and ever will, Through scorn and hatred, Cynthia, love thee still! None else shall reign where Cynthia reign'd of yore; None else shall please me, as I'm thine no more. If for this wish my faith can e'er atone, Pray Heaven that love of thine may freeze to stone.

Stern was the strife that in a mother's sight Inflamed the Theban chiefs of old to fight: Sterner were that, if Cynthia be the prize, And we, self-murder'd, fall before her eyes.

Sed tempus lustrare.

TOW I wake in Helicon a loftier strain,

And let the courser sweep a wider plain!

The might of warriors rushing to the field,

And Rome's great chief a warlike theme shall yield.
Courage in weighty works must power supply,
And praise be mine that I've the will to try.

Love sways the young, and war the old man's song:
Be camps my theme, of love I've sung too long.
Now must my walk be staid, and calm my brow;
Far other notes my muse would teach me now.
Then rise, my soul, and let th' Aonian band
Breathe the high strains such mighty themes
demand;

For now the Parthian flings his bow aside,
And, all too late, repents that Crassus died;
Low at thy coming India bends the knee,
And Araby, the jealous, quails to thee;
Each far-off land beyond th' estranging foam

Shall feel thy might, and own the Lord of Rome.

And I, if fate be kind, amid thy train

Shall by my song some meed of glory gain.
Too low to reach the stately statue's head,
Men lay their chaplet at its feet instead;
So I, too weak to climb the heights of song,
Bring a poor gift, and worship in the throng.

Undrain'd by me are Hesiod's founts; but still Love bathed me once beneath th' Aonian rill.

II.

Scribant de te alii.

UNSUNG or not, another's be the toil

To praise thy charms, and sow a thankless soil; Yet, doubt it not, those charms must fly, and be Whelm'd in the same dark bier that waits for thee; And the rough boor shall pass without a sigh

For all the wit interr'd where thou dost lie.

III.

Quicumque ille fuit.

WHOE'ER the love-god as a boy design'd,

WH

Dost thou not think he had a master-mind? The blind and careless lives of Love's gay crew, The mad unthrift that recks not loss, he knew; Shaped aëry wings with no unmeaning art, And bade the God flit ever in the heart; For o'er Love's sea, now high, now low we ride, Where never gale blows constant o'er the tide.

'Tis well the barbèd shaft his hand should deck,
The Cretan quiver dangle from his neck,
For Love can wound before we see the foe;
It rankles deep, yet none can fly the blow.
And I! I feel the youthful archer's stings,
Yet has he lost, methinks, those aëry wings,
Since from my breast, alas! he flies no more,
But drains my life-blood in relentless war.
What boots to triumph o'er a wither'd heart?
Then turn for very shame elsewhere thy dart,
Let hearts unblighted yet thy victims be,
Nor waste thy venom on a shade like me.
Or lose but me, and who shall sing thy might?
'Tis to thy glory, though my muse is slight,
My love's dark eye, rich hair, and hand I sing,
And how her fairy footsteps softly ring.

IV.

Non tot Achæmeniis.

THE shafts of love that pierce my breast are more

Than all the armouries of Persia's war.

'Twas Love that bid me tune my feeble lay,

And haunt the shades where Hesiod loved to stray

Not that the Thracian oaks might heed my song,

Or savage beasts be charm'd the vales along; But that my verse might bend proud Cynthia's will,

And mine surpass the Grecian masters' skill.