A BOOK O DE I. TO VENUS. Iy*. GAIN? new Tumults in my breast ? Ah spare me, Venus! let me, let me reft! I am not now, alas! the man As in the gentle Reign of My Queen Anne. Ah found no more thy foft alarms, Nor circle fober fifty with thy Charms. Mother too fierce of dear Defires! Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires. To Number five direct your Doves, There spread round MURRAY all ing Loves; your bloom Noble and young, who ftrikes the heart Equal, the injur'd to defend, To charm the Mistress, or to fix the Friend. NOTES. This, and the unfinish'd imitation of the ninth Ode of the fourth Book which follows, fhew as happy a vein for ma naging the Odes of Horace as the Epiftes. Et centum puer artium, Late figna feret militiae tuae. Et, quandoque potentior Largi muneribus riferit aemuli, Albanos prope te lacus Ponet marmoream fub trabe citrea. Illic plurima naribus Duces thura; lyraque et Berecynthia Delectabere tibia Mixtis carminibus, non fine fistula. Illic bis pueri die Numen cum teneris virginibus tuum Laudantes, pede candido In morem Salium ter quatient humum. Me nec femina, nec puer Jam, nec fpes animi credula mutui, Nec certare juvat mero, Nec vincire novis tempora floribus. He, with a hundred Arts refin'd, Shall stretch thy conquefts over half the kind : To him each Rival fhall fubmit, Make but his Riches equal to his Wit. Then fhall thy Form the Marble grace, (Thy Grecian Form) and Chloe lend the Face: His House, embofom'd in the Grove, Sacred to focial life and focial love, Shall glitter o'er the pendent green, Where Thames reflects the visionary scene: Thither, the filver-founding lyres Shall call the smiling Loves, and young Defires; There Youths and Nymphs, in confort gay, For me the vernal garlands bloom no more. The still-believing, ftill-renew'd defire; Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl, And all the kind Deceivers of the foul! But why? ah tell me, ah too dear! Steals down my cheek th' involuntary Tear? VOL. VI. Sed cur, heu! Ligurine, cur Manat rara meas lacryma per genas? Cur facunda parum decoro Inter verba cadit lingua filentio? Nocturnis ego fomniis Jam captum teneo, jam volucrem fequor Te per gramina Martii Campi, te per aquas, dure, volubiles. Why words fo flowing, thoughts fo free, Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee? Thee, dreft in Fancy's airy beam, Abfent I follow thro' th' extended Dream ; Now, now I feize, I clafp thy charms, And now you burft (ah cruel!) from my arms; And swiftly shoot along the Mall, Or foftly glide by the Canal, Now shown by Cynthia's filver ray, And now, on rolling waters fnatch'd away. D 2 |