XVIII.

CYNTHIA.

A SOLILOQUY.

Haec certe deserta loca, et taciturna querenti.

THIS desert is the home of dumb repose,

In this lorn grove calm Zephyr holds sole sway; Here one may safely breathe his secret woes, If lonely rocks the trust will not betray.

Whence, Cynthia, shall I date thy cold disdain? What act of thine did first my sorrow move? Once I was numbered in love's happy train, And now, alas! I'm branded in thy love.

Is this deserved? To me what charge is laid? Does some new flame of mine thy bosom fret? Turn, fickle one, for ne'er has other maid

Her fairy foot upon my threshold set.

Although from thee has sprung this anguish dire, Yet will my fury prove not so severe

As justly to bring down thy ceaseless ire,

And from thine eyes draw forth the bitter tear.

C

Have I, grown cold, too little love confest? *
Or has my faithless face evoked thy ban?
If trees can love, ye shall my truth attest,

O beech! and thou, O pine! beloved of Pan.

'Neath your soft shade how oft my wail I pour!

How oft is "Cynthia" graven on your rind! Art wroth I mourned thy wrongs? thy silent door + Alone can tell my misery of mind.

Thy proud behests I've borne with patient will,
Nor 'gainst thy treatment cried in my distress;
For this my couch is the bleak furzy hill, ‡
The ice-cold rock, the pathless wilderness.

Whatever tale of woe my tongue may frame,

Alone to tuneful birds I'm forced to sing: Be what thou wilt, the woods with Cynthia's name, With Cynthia's name the desert rocks shall ring.

* An quia parva damus mutato signa calore?—(Mueller.)
† An, tua quod peperit nobis injuria curas?—(Barth.)
Pro quo dumosi montes et frigida rupes.—(Mueller.)

liber:

XIX.

TO CYNTHIA.

Non ego nunc tristes vereor, mea Cynthia, Manes.

CYNTHIA, I dread not now the dreary tomb,
Nor on the pile to pay the debt of doom,
But lest, perchance, thy love should die with me-
This fear is worse than death itself can be ;
For Love hath stuck too firmly to mine eyes
To let the grave efface old memories.
Phylacides in Hades could not dwell
Forgetful of the wife he loved so well,
But for her sweet caress his shadow yearned,
And to his old Thessalian home returned.
'Mong shades I'll thine be called for evermore:
Great love survives beyond the fatal shore.
There let the troop of lovely heroines stand-
The Dardan prizes of the Argive band—

No form, like thine, my heart shall captive lead;

And Tellus this, in justice, may concede.

And though thou liv'st through long and weary years,

Yet shall thy bones be watered by my tears.
Oh might thy lifelong love mine ashes bless!
Then death were reft of all its bitterness;
Yet how I fear my tomb thou'lt disregard,
And Love estrange thy heart-for Love is hard—

And sternly make thee dry the trickling tear!
His ceaseless threats make lealest maidens veer.

Then let us pluck life's roses while we may :
Love's longest term flits all too fast away.

GALLUS! 'tis steadfast friendship prompts my lay,
Then do not lightly throw my words away :
Ill fortune often meets the incautious swain ;
Erst cold Ascanius brought the Minyae bane.

As Theiodamantean Hylas dear,

A youth thou hast-like-named-in looks his peer.
Then shouldst thou roam by shady river-side,
Or lave thy feet in Anio's limpid tide,

Or saunter by the giant-peopled shore,

Or stroll, maychance, where dashing torrents roar-
Beware the nymphs,-beware their amorous raids-
Ausonian Dryads love like other maids-

Lest thou be doomed to range o'er mountain-brake,
By frozen rock and undiscovered lake.

As lorn Alcides trod the pathless shore
Of pitiless Ascanius, weeping sore.

'Tis said that Argo whilom sailed away
For Phasis from the Pagasaean bay,
On through the Athamantine billows bore,
And put to land on Mysia's rocky shore.

When now the crew had reached a peaceful strand,
And made, with leaves, soft couches on the sand,
The unconquered hero's favourite onward sped
To seek a far-secluded fountain-head.

Him the twin-brothers, Boreas' winged brood,
Zethes and Calaïs, rapidly pursued—
Strove, on their poisèd wings, his lips to kiss,
And bear aloft in turn the ravished bliss:
Now hid he 'neath their wings upraised in air,
And with a bough drove off the wily pair.

Soon Orithyia's sons let Hylas roam :

Ah woe! he sought, ah! sought the oak-nymphs' home.

Beneath Arganthus' summit lay a well

Moist home where Thynian Dryads love to dwell-
O'erhanging which dew-nurtured apples smiled
On trees untended in the woodland wild;
Around the watered mead white lilies grew,
With poppies intermixed of purple hue.
With tender nail he culls them, happy boy!
His task forgot a flower his only joy.
Now o'er the font the reckless youth delays,
And in the glassy pool his form surveys;
Now dips his urn to fill it to the brim,
His right arm leaning on the mossy rim.