TO CYNTHIA.

Iste quod est, ego saepi fui; sed fors et in hora.

WHAT he is now I've often been before;
An hour, perhaps, may see his glory o'er.

Penelope, whom many sought to wed,
For twice ten years a life of honour led;
With guileful web her bridal could delay,
By night unweaving what she wove by day;
And though for aye she deemed Ulysses gone,
And age with wrinkles came, she waited on.

Briseïs, too, caressed with wild embrace
Achilles slain, and smote her lovely face;

Though slave, she mourned and laved her gore-stained lord
In Simois' stream beside a shallow ford;
Soiled her fair locks, and in her tender hold
Lifted thy corse and bones of giant mould,
Achilles, when nor Peleus stood by thee,
Nor thy dear mother from the azure sea,
Nor lone Deïdamia, left the while
To mourn thy loss in Scyros' barren isle.

Then Greece rejoiced in daughters leal in love,
And 'mid the clang of arms fair virtue throve.
Yet one brief night alone thou couldst not stay ;
No, heartless woman, not a single day.

Nay, thou didst drink and giggle with thy guests,
Myself, perchance, the butt of all thy jests.

Thou seek'st the man who played thee false before--
Heaven grant thou mayst enjoy him evermore!

Fell payment for my vows thy life to save
When thou wert sinking in the Stygian wave,
And friends stood round thy bed bewailing thee!
Where was he then, ye gods, or what was he?
What! were I now, on some far Indian plain,
In arms detained, or tossed upon the main,
My trust with falsehood thou wouldst glibly earn-
This trick a woman never failed to learn.
Not so with gusts the Syrtes shift, nor so
Quiver the leaves when wintry south winds blow,
As wavers woman's mind with rage a-flame;
And, grave or slight the cause, 'tis all the same.

Since such thy fiat, I will now give way.
Ho, Cupids! draw more poignant shafts, I pray ;
Strike sure, and snap at once my life's poor thread:
Your noblest prize to see my heart's-blood shed.

The watchful stars, the pearly rime of morn,
Thy door by stealth unbarred to me love-torn,
Attest thou'st aye been all in all to me:
Though mine no longer, dear thou'lt ever be.
No other love shall e'er press couch of mine :
Alone I'll live, since I may not be thine.
If pure my life, heaven grant that clod may prove
A block of stone amid the fires of love!

The Theban chiefs did not more proudly die
To gain the throne, before their mother's eye,
Than I, wert thou but witness of the fray,
Would welcome death might I my rival slay.

BOOK III.