Some failing, Nature did to each assign :,
My fate has ever been to love the fair;
And, Envy, though rapt Thamyras' doom be mine,
I never will be blind if beauty's there.

Though now, perchance, my limbs seem lank and spare,
Love's service galls me not all-unsubdued;

Make quest-my prowess many will declare,
Though fierce the combat and though oft renewed.

Two nights great Jove to fair Alcmena clung,
And twice was heaven reft of its king by night,
Yet with no feebler hand the bolt he flung:
Love ne'er exhausts its vigour from delight.

What? when Achilles left Briseïs' side,
Was Ilium of his javelins less afraid?
When valiant Hector left his loving bride,
Say, were the fleets of Argos undismayed?

The one a nation's navy could o'erthrow,
A city's walls the other could undo :
So me in love a fierce Pelides know,

In me behold a valiant Hector too.

See how the sky enjoys two favourites' charms—
The sun's now, now the moon's a pair for me!
Yes, let a second clasp me in her arms,

Should one make bold my fond embrace to flee.

Or if my slave has roused her ire, as sure
As she denies, she'll find her rival wins:
Two cables doubly well a ship secure ;

An anxious mother doubly cares for twins.

XIII b.

Aut, si es dura, nega: sin es non dura, venito!

IF cold, refuse; if kind, come hither, love!
Why all thy promises as nothing deem?
For 'tis a woe all other woes above

To dash at once a lover's cherished dream.

In bed he sighs and tosses spirit-sore,

To think his darling seeks a stranger's arms;
He bores his slave with questions o'er and o'er,
And pleads for fresh details 'mid fresh alarms.

XIV.

THE RAKE'S PROGRESS.

Cui fuit indocti fugienda haec semita volgi.

ALL fancy for the rabble road 'twas once my aim to smother,
Now water from the pond to me has quite a pleasant gout.
Say, is a gentleman to bribe the servant of another,
To carry to his lady-love a promised billet-doux?

Is he to ask times o'er and o'er what temple she may be in, And in what park she's walking now; and then, when he has

sought

The town all through, and borne a host of toils quite Herculean, To get from her a note like this: "What present have you

brought?"

To be allowed to scan her surly warder, and, detected,

To skulk away perhaps in some abominable slum? How dearly once a-year comes round a night we've long expected!

On those whom bolted doors delight may every evil come!

Give me the girl who boldly walks, her veil thrown back behind her,

Unwatched by guards whose jealous eyes one's peace of mind destroy

Who treads the Sacred Way with muddy shoe, and when you find her,

And whisper in her ear your wish, is anything but coy.

She'll never put you off, nor for the paltry guinea stickle, The loss of which your cross-grained sire would mourn in sore dismay;

Nor will she say, "I'm terrified; be off, I'm in a pickle,—

My husband, who's been out of town, is coming home to-day."

With maidens from Euphrates and Orontes I'm in clover.
Talk not of chaste caress to me, 'tis all a bagatelle:
Since lovers are constrained to give all thoughts of freedom

over,

The man who sets his heart on love to freedom bids farewell.

XV.

THE POET'S EXCUSE.

Tu loqueris, cum sis jam noto fabula libro,
Et tua sit toto Cynthia lecta foro?'

"AND do you talk-you, now a byword grown,
Whose 'Cynthia' through the forum's read and known?"
At words like these, whose brow all o'er and o'er
Would rain not burning sweat from every pore?
A gentleman must either blush for shame,*
Or never venture once his love to name.

Were Cynthia kind as girls of lower price,
I should not now be called the crown of vice,
Nor have the whole town's scandal at me hurled;
And though I burned, in word I'd cheat the world.
No wonder I to common queans repair-
They harm me less; seems that a small affair?

For fan a peacock's tail she now demands,
Now asks a crystal ball to cool her hands;
Begs me, grown wroth, to cheapen ivory dice,
And Sacra Via's glittering trash. The price-
Hang it is a mere bagatelle; but yet

I blush to be the jest of a coquette.

* Aut pudor ingenuost aut reticendus amor.—(Munro.)

XVI.

SEPARATION.

Hoc erat in primis quod me gaudere jubebas?

Was this the peerless joy in store for me?
Oh, shame that one so fair should fickle be !
In love we've hardly spent our second night,
And now thou art a-weary of my sight.
Once thou didst praise me and my lays alone;
Has all that love of thine so quickly flown?

With me in genius let my rival vie,
Or art-first let him learn fidelity;

Bid him on Lerna's brood his prowess test,
The apples from Hisperian dragon wrest,
Drain baleful poisons, shipwrecked gulp the sea,
And brave all miseries for sake of thee.
Light of my life! oh bid me bear the same!
That braggart soon will earn the coward's name
Who proudly vaunts his puffed-up honour now:
One single year will snap your covenant-vow.

Me not the Sibyl's years, though vast their range,
Alcides' toil, nor doom's dark day, shall change.
Thou'lt lay me in the silent grave, and say,
"These are thy bones, Propertius, faithful aye.
Alas! alas! how true wast thou to me,

Though thine nor wealth nor ancient pedigree !"