End, in a dying virgin's wretched fate,

Thy ill-starr'd passion and my stedfast hate:
For long as blood informs these circling veins,
Or fleeting breath its latest power retains,
Hear me to Egypt's vengeful gods declare
Hate is my part; be thine, O king, despair..

Now strike, (she said, and open'd bare her
Stand it in Judah's Chronicles confess'd, [breast)
That David's son, by impious passion moved,
Smote a she-slave, and murder'd what he loved.'
Ashamed, confused, I started from the bed,
And to my soul, yet uncollected, said,
Into thyself, fond Solomon, return;

Reflect again, and thou again shalt mourn. [sought,
When I through number'd years have pleasure
And in vain hope the wanton phantom caught,
To mock my sense and mortify my pride,
'Tis in another's power, and is denied.

Am I a king, great Heaven! does life or death
Hang on the wrath or mercy of my breath,
While kneeling I my servant's smiles implore,
And one mad damsel dares dispute my power?'

To ravish her? that thought was soon depress'd, Which must debase the monarch to the beast. To send her back? O whither, and to whom? To lands where Solomon must never come? To that insulting rival's happy arms

For whom, disdaining me, she keeps her charms? Fantastic tyrant of the amorous heart,

How hard thy yoke! how cruel is thy dart! Those scape thy anger who refuse thy sway, And those are punish'd most, who most obey. See Judah's king revere thy greater power; What canst thou covet, or how triumph more?

Why then, O Love, with an obdurate ear
Does this proud nymph reject a monarch's prayer?
Why to some simple shepherd does she run,
From the fond arms of David's favourite son?
Why flies she from the glories of a court,
Where wealth and pleasure may thy reign support,
To some poor cottage on the mountain's brow,
Now bleak with winds, and cover'd now with snow;
Where pinching want must curb her warm desires,
And household cares suppress thy genial fires?
Too aptly the afflicted heathens prove

The force, while they erect the shrines of Love.
His mystic form the artisans of Greece
In wounded stone or molten gold express;
And Cyprus to his godhead pays
her Vow.
Fast in his hand the idol holds his bow;
A quiver by his side sustains his store
Of pointed darts, sad emblems of his power;
A pair of wings he has, which he extends
Now to be gone, which now again he bends,
Prone to return, as best may serve his wanton
ends.

Entirely thus I find the fiend pourtray'd,
Since first, alas! I saw the beauteous maid;
I felt him strike, and now I see him fly :
Cursed demon: O! for ever broken lie
Those fatal shafts by which I inward bleed!
O! can my wishes yet o'ertake thy speed!
Tired mayst thou pant, and hang thy flagging wing,
Except thou turn'st thy course, resolved to bring
The damsel back, and save the love-sick king.
My soul thus struggling in the fatal net,
Unable to enjoy or to forget,

I reason'd much, alas! but more I loved;
Sent and recall'd, ordain'd and disapproved;
Till, hopeless, plunged in an abyss of grief,
I from necessity received relief;

Time gently aided to assuage my pain,

And Wisdom took once more the slacken'd rein.
But O how short my interval of woe!
Our griefs how swift, our remedies how slow!
Another nymph (for so did Heaven ordain,
To change the manner, but renew the pain)
Another nymph, amongst the many fair
That made my softer hours their solemn care,
Before the rest affected still to stand,

And watch'd my eye, preventing my command.
Abra, she so was call'd, did soonest haste
To grace my presence; Abra went the last:
Abra was ready ere I call'd her name,
And though I call'd another, Abra came.

Her equals first observed her growing zeal, And laughing gloss'd, that Abra served so well. To me her actions did unheeded die,

Or were remark'd but with a common eye,
Till more apprized of what the rumour said,
More I observed peculiar in the maid.

The sun declined had shot his western ray,
When, tired with business of the solemn day,
I purposed to unbend the evening hours,
And banquet private in the women's bowers.
I call'd before I sat to wash my hands,
For so the precept of the law commands:
Love had ordain'd that it was Abra's turn
To mix the sweets and minister the urn.

With awful homage and submissive dread
The maid approach'd, on my declining head