INSISTING EARNESTLY TO BE TOLD, WHO I MEANT BY MYRA.
WITH Myra's charms, and my extreme despair,
Long had my muse amaz'd the reader's ear:
My friends, with pity, heard the mournful sound,
And all inquir'd from whence the fatal wound?
The' astonish'd world beheld an endless flame,
Ne'er to be quench'd, unknowing whence it came:
So scatter'd fire from scorch'd Vesuvius flies,
Unknown the source from whence those flames
arise:
Egyptian Nile so spreads its waters round,
O'erflowing far and near, its head unfound.
Myra herself, touch'd with the moving song, Would needs be told to whom those plaints belong. My timorous tongue, not daring to confess, Trembling to name, would fain have had her guess: Impatient of excuse, she urges still,
Persists in her demand, she must, she will;
If silent, I am threaten'd with her hate;
If I obey-Ah! what may be my fate?
Uncertain to conceal, or to unfold,
She smiles-the goddess smiles-and I grow bold.
My vows to Myra, all were meant to thee,
The praise, the love, the matchless constancy.
'Twas thus of old, when all the' immortal dames
Were grac'd by poets, each with several names ;
For Venus, Cytherea was invok'd;
Altars for Pallas, to Tritonia smok'd.
Such names were theirs; and thou the most, divine, Most lov'd of heavenly beauties-Myra's thine.
So calm and, so serene, but now,
What means this change on Myra's brow?
Her anguish love now glows and burns,
Then chills and shakes, and the cold fit returns.
Mock'd with deluding looks and smiles,
When on her pity I depend,
My airy hope she soon beguiles,
And laughs to see my torments never end.
So up the steepy hill, with pain,
The weighty stone is roll'd in vain,
Which, having touch'd the top, recoils,
And leaves the labourer to renew his toils.
Lost in a labyrinth of doubts and joys,
Whom now her smiles reviv'd, her scorn destroys:
She will, and she will not; she grants, denies,
Consents, retracts, advances, and then flies;
Approving, and rejecting in a breath,
Now proffering mercy, now presenting death.
Thus hoping, thus despairing, never sure;
How various are the torments I endure!
Cruel estate of doubt! Ah, Myra, try
Once to resolve-or let me live, or die.
PREPAR'D to rail, resolv'd to part,
When I approach'd the perjur'd fair,
What is it awes my timorous heart?
Why does my tongue forbear?
With the least glance, a little kind,
Such wondrous power have Myra's charms, She calms my doubts, enslaves my mind, And all my rage disarms.
Forgetful of her broken vows,
When gazing on that form divine, Her injur❜d vassal trembling bows, Nor dares her slave repine.
CORINNA, in the bloom of youth,
Was coy to every lover,
Regardless of the tenderest truth,
No soft complaint could move her.
Mankind was her's, all at her feet
Lay prostrate and adoring:
The witty, handsome, rich, and great,
In vain alike imploring.
But now grown old, she would repair
Her loss of time, and pleasure;
With willing eyes, and wanton air,
Inviting every gazer.
But love's a summer flower, that dies
With the first weather's changing;
The lover, like the swallow, flies
From sun to sun still ranging.
Myra, let this example move
Your foolish heart to reason: Youth is the proper time for love, And age is virtue's season.
HERE end my chains, and thraldom cease,
If not in joy, I'll live at least in peace;
Since for the pleasures of an hour,
We must endure an age of pain,
I'll be this abject thing no more,
Love, give me back my heart again.
Despair tormented first my breast,
Now falsehood, a more cruel guest;
O! for the peace of humankind,
Make women longer true, or sooner kind:
With justice, or with mercy reign,
O love! or give me back my heart again.
To love, is to be doom'd on earth to feel
What after death the tortur'd meet in hell;
The vulture, dipping in Prometheus' side
His bloody beak, with his torn liver dy'd,
Is love; the stone that labours up the hill,
Mocking the labourer's toil, returning still,
Is love those streams where Tantalus is curs'd
To sit, and never drink, with endless thirst:
Those loaden boughs that with their burden bend
To court his taste, and yet escape his hand,
All this is love; that to dissembled joys
Invites vain men, with real grief destroys.
ENOUGH, enough, my soul, of worldly noise,
Of airy pomps, and fleeting joys;
What does this busy world provide at best,
But brittle goods that break like glass,
But poison'd sweets, a troubled feast,
And pleasures like the winds that in a moment pass?
Thy thoughts to nobler meditations give,
And study how to die, not how to live.
How frail is beauty! Ah, how vain,
And how short-liv'd those glories are, That vex our nights and days with pain, And break our hearts with care!
In dust we no distinction see,
Such Helen is; such, Myra, thou must be.
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