Which I believe-though fatall—will afford
An endless name unto their ruin'd lord.
And now thus gone, it rests for love of me
Thou shewst some sorrow to my memory;
Thy funerall offrings to my ashes beare,
With wreathes of cypresse bath'd in many a teare,
Though nothing there but dust of me remain,
Yet shall that dust perceive thy pious pain.
But I have done, and my tyr'd sickly head
Though I would fain write more, desires the bed;
Take then this word-perhaps my last, to tell-
Which though I want, I wish it thee, fare-well.
AUSONII CUPIDO, EDYL.1 6.
'N those blest fields of everlasting aire -Where to a myrtle-grove the soules
Of deceas'd lovers,-the sad, thoughtfull ghosts
Of injur'd ladyes meet, where each accoasts
The other with a sigh, whose very breath
Would break a heart, and-kind soules-love in
A thick wood clouds their walks, where day scarse
And on each hand cypresse and poppey sleepes,
The drowsie rivers slumber, and springs there
Blab not, but softly melt into a teare;
A sickly dull aire fans them, which can have
When most in force scarce breath to build a wave.
On either bank through the still shades appear
A scene of pensive flowres, whose bosomes wear
Drops of a lover's bloud, the emblem'd truths.
Of deep despair, and love-slain kings and youths.
The hyacinth, and self-enamour'd boy
Narcissus flourish there, with Venus' joy
The spruce Adonis, and that prince whose flowre
Hath sorrow languag'd on him to this houre;
All sad with love they hang their heads, and grieve
As if their passions in each leafe did live;
And here-alas! these soft-soul'd ladies stray,
And-oh! too late!—treason in love betray.
Her blasted birth sad Semele repeats,
And with her tears would quench the thund'rer's heate,
Then shakes her bosome, as if fir'd again,
And fears another lightning's flaming train.
The lovely Pocris-here-bleeds, sighes, and swounds,
Then wakes, and kisses him that gave her wounds.
Sad Hero holds a torch forth, and doth light
Her lost Leander through the waves and night,
Her boatemen desp'rate Sapho still admires,
And nothing but the Sea can quench her fires.
Distracted Phaedra with a restless eye
Her disdain'd letters reads, then casts them by.
Rare, faithfull Thysbe-sequestred from these-
A silent, unseen sorrow doth best please;
For her love's sake, and last good-night, poor she
Walks in the shadow of a mulberrie.
Neer her young Canace with Dido sits,
A lovely couple, but of desp'rate wits,
Both dy'd alike, both pierc'd their tender brests,
This with her father's sword, that with her guests.
Within the thickest textures of the grove
Diana in her silver-beams doth rove,
Her crown of stars the pitchie aire invades,
And with a faint light gilds the silent shades,
Whilst her sad thoughts fixt on her sleepie lover,
To Latmos-hill, and his retirements move her,
A thousand more through the wide, darksome wood
Feast on their cares, the maudlin-lover's food;
For griefe and absence do but edge desire,
And death is fuell to a lover's fire.
To see these trophies of his wanton bow,
Cupid comes in, and all in triumph now,
Rash-unadvised boy!-disperseth round
The sleepie mists; his wings and quiver wound
With noise the quiet aire. This sudden stirre
Betrayes his godship, and as we from far
A clouded, sickly moon observe, so they
Through the false mists his ecclyps'd torch betray.
A hot pursute they make, and though with care,
And a slow wing, he softly stems the aire,
Yet they-as subtill now as he-surround
His silenc'd course-and with the thick night
bound
Surprize the wag. As in a dream we strive
To voyce our thoughts, and vainly would revive
Our entraunc'd tongues, but can not speech en-
'Till the soule wakes and reassumes her charge; So joyous of their prize, they flock about
And vainly swell with an imagin'd shout.
Far in these shades, and melancholy coasts A myrtle growes, well known to all the ghosts, Whose stretch'd top-like a great man rais'd by Fate
Looks big, and scorns his neighbour's low estate;
His leavy arms into a green cloud twist,
And on each branch doth sit a lazie mist,
A fatall tree, and luckless to the gods,
Which for disdain in life-Love's worst of ods,-
The queen of shades, fair Proserpine did rack
The sad Adonis: hither now they pack,
This little god, where, first disarm'd, they bind,
His skittish wings, then both his hands behind
His back they tye, and thus secur'd at last
The peevish wanton to the tree made fast.
Here at adventure without judge or jurie,
He is condemn'd, while with united furie
They all assaile him; as a theife at bar
Left to the Law, and mercy of his star,
Hath bills heap'd on him, and is question'd there
By all the men that have been rob'd that year;
So now what ever Fate, or their own will
Scor'd up in life, Cupid must pay the bill.
Their servant's falshood, jealousie, disdain,
And all the plagues that abus'd maids can feign,
Are layd on him, and then to heighten spleen,
Their own deaths crown the summe. Prest thus
between
His faire accusers, 'tis at last decreed,
He by those weapons, that they died, should bleed. One grasps an airie sword, a second holds
Illusive fire, and in vain wanton folds
Belyes a flame; others lesse kind
appear
To let him bloud, and from the purple tear
Create a rose. But Sapho all this while
Harvests the aire, and from a thicken'd pile
Of clouds like Leucas-top, spreads underneath
A sea of mists, the peacefull billows breath
Without all noise, yet so exactly move
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