VI. THE JOYS OF LOVE. O me felicem! o nox mihi candida! et o tu! O BLISS! O charming night! O couch thrice dear, From love-delights that all past joys outshone! What charming prattle when the lamp burnt clear! What loving dalliance when the light was gone! Now with bare breasts she strove, and now delayed How twined our arms our struggling waists around! Lo! Paris burned as Helen robeless came But if, persistently, your robe you don, My hands will rend it to invade your charms; Nay, should unwonted passion urge me on, You'll have to show your mother bruisèd arms. Yours are no drooping breasts that you should claim To be from Love's delightful warfare barred; Leave it to her to wear the blush of shame Whose handsome form has been by travail marred. While fate allows, let love delight our eyne; The amorous doves be pattern of our joy, Sooner the soil shall mock the toiling swain Sooner shall fishes roam the arid shore,— Than I to other maid transfer my love: All my life long my charmer I'll adore; To her in death itself I'll faithful prove. If nights like this she grant me e'er again, Were Love and Wine life's work, we'd mourn nor steel, Surely of me posterity shall say My cups ne'er vexed the gods: then, love, do you Stint not life's joys in youth's brief summer day; A world of kisses is a world too few. For as the leaves from withered garlands fall VII. TO CYNTHIA. Praetor ab Illyricis venit modo, Cynthia, terris. FROM the Illyrian land the other day Your friend the praetor has returned, I learn— To you a fruitful source of welcome prey, To me of inexpressible concern. If on the Thunder-cliffs thou'dst dashed his head, Yet reap the proffered harvest if you're wise, And when at last in beggary he lies, For new Illyrias bid him cross the deep. With neither rank nor honours Cynthia's ta'en; Let sore indulgence waste his strength away. So any one with gifts may purchase love? O Jove my darling pines for harlot-hire; For gems she bids me o'er the ocean rove, And bear her home the costly gifts of Tyre. Would none were rich in Rome, and Caesar's self Not that for seven whole nights from me you lay— A lubber, sudden-blest, in robes of shame, Now rules my realm: yet think, in all your pride, What bitter gifts to Eriphyle came ! What fearful flames consumed Iason's bride! Will no wrong stem the ever-welling tear? And must I still your faithlessness deplore? The theatres and parks have ceased to cheer For many a day, and song is song no more. Yet shame, ah! shame—unless, perchance, 'tis true, That shameless love is deaf, as men have said. See him who lately with his guilty crew The Actian sea with bootless din o'erspread. Base passion bade him wheel with flying prow, The hand that conquered now has sheathed the spear. What robes he gave you, and what emeralds rare, Not aye Jove calmly smiles on perjury, And turns a deaf ear to the wretch's prayer. These not the frowning Pleiades have wrought; For he hath shed the bitter tears of woe, Befooled by faithless maiden's perfidy: Then prize no more Sidonian vestments so, That you must fear when south winds gloom the sky. |