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Where's the false sorcerer I have not fee'd?

Or witch who has not tried my dreams to read? 'Neath Cupid's banner let my foes enlist,

Be every friend a sworn misogynist.

Safe glides the pinnace down the tranquil stream;
Why on its tiny shore of danger dream?

Light by thyself will be thy load of care:
Thy heart's blood hardly will appease the fair.

V.

TO CYNTHIA.

Hoc verumst, tota te ferri, Cynthia, Roma.

THE talk of Rome ! O Cynthia is it true?

And dost thou then the tongue of scandal court? Was this deserved? False one, thy course thou'lt rue! The wind shall waft me to another port.

I'll surely find one in the fickle throng

*

Who'll prize her poet's tuneful wreath of fame-
Who will not mock his love with bitter wrong,
But hold thy heartless conduct up to shame.

Alas! long loved-too late thou❜lt weep at last.
'Tis time to say adieu, while fresh mine ire;
Full well I know, when once my grief is past,
Love will return with all its olden fire.

* Et nobis aliquo, Cynthia, ventus erit.--(Lachmann.)

Not so, when raves the northern tempest loud,
Carpathian billows ever-varying range;

Nor veering south wind turns the blackening cloud,
As love's capricious mind is prone to change.

Propertius! nerve thy spirit for the fight,

And from the galling yoke thy neck remove; Thou'lt grieve, 'tis true, but only for a night: Be firm, and light are all the ills of love.

But thou, by Juno's hallowed name, I pray,

Harm not thyself, nor give thy fury rein;
Not the horned bull alone doth seek the fray-
The gentle sheep, if injured, turns again.

From thy false breast I'll not the raiment tear,
Nor shiver in my wrath thy bolted door,
Nor use my hands, nor rend thy braided hair—
Thus clowns may war whose brows ne'er ivy wore.

But what I write shall cleave unto thy name:
"The lovely Cynthia, Cynthia false and frail."
Scorn as thou wilt the idle tales of fame,

This verse will make thy rosy colour pale.

VI.

TO CYNTHIA

Non ita complebant Ephyreae Laidos aedes.

NOT so through Ephyrean Lais' door,

Where Greece all prostrate lay, did lovers pour ;
Nor to Menander's Thais flocked along
The gay and giddy Erichthonian throng;

Not Phryne, who could ruined Thebes rebuild,
By more admirers had her coffers filled.
Sham cousins often come and kiss thee too,
As cousins always have a right to do!

Their portraits pain my eyes, their names my ears,
The tender cradled infant wakes my fears;
Nay more, thy very mother's lips I dread,
Thy sister, and the maid who shares her bed;
Annoyed, perplexed, I fear—oh pardon me !—
A man 'neath every female dress I see.

Hence, legends tell, did strife men's minds employ ;
Hence, hence arose the bloody wars of Troy;
The Centaurs, with the self-same fury stung,
Their crashing goblets at Peirithous flung.
But wherefore cite the Greeks? To thee 'tis due,
Wolf-suckled Romulus, who taught'st thy crew
To rifle of its maids each Sabine home,
That now unbridled licence reigns in Rome.

Thrice-blest Admetus' spouse, Ulysses' bride,
And every wife who loves her lord's fireside!
Why rear new fanes to Chastity, if still

We let our matrons do whate'er they will?

The hand that first depicted scenes impure,
And decked chaste homes with lust's foul garniture,
Corrupted guileless maidens' modest eyes,

Till then unschooled in immoralities—

Curse him, who with insidious art could throw
The veil of rapture o'er the springs of woe!
Men had no statues in the olden time,

Nor lined their walls with scenes of pictured crime.
Now cobwebs veil our fanes, with weeds o'ergrown
The gods deserted lie-the fault's our own.

What guards, what threshold shall I find, alas!
That hostile foot may never dare to pass?
'Gainst woman's will no power can keep her pure:
Ashamed to sin, she's safe from every lure.

Nor wife nor mistress shall inveigle me :
My mistress and my wife thou'lt ever be.

VII.

TO CYNTHIA..

Gavisa es certe sublatam, Cynthia, legem.

CYNTHIA, I'm sure thou'rt glad that they've been sweeping Away that law that's kept us both long weeping,

For fear 'twould part us; though Jove's self could never

Two faithful lovers 'gainst their will dissever.
Our Caesar's great-in arms a mighty hero;
But glorious conquests stand in love at zero.
I'd sooner die than come to such a dead-lock
As change our taper for the torch of wedlock,
Or pass thy closed door in mode marital,
Shedding true tears at thy too hard requital.
And then the flute-notes-ah! to thee how frightful!
A funeral trumpet's blast were more delightful.

Rear sons to win new triumphs for the nation!
"Twill have no soldiers of my procreation;
But were my love in camp, a charger faster
I'd need than e'en the nimble steed of Castor.
For hence such fame have I achieved in story,
The frozen Scythians own my claims to glory.
If thou art mine, and I thine only treasure,
I'll count paternity a paltry pleasure.

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