Classic Poem

BOOK I. ODE XXXIII .

TO A GENTLEMAN IN LOVE .

Why do'st thou still in tears complain,
Too mindful of thy love's disdain?
Why still in melancholy verse
Unmeek Maria's hate rehearse,
That Thirsis finds by fate's decree
More favour in her sight than thee?
The love of Cyrus does enthrall
Lycoris fair, with forehead small;
Cyrus declines to Pholoe's eyes,
Who unrelenting hears his sighs:
But wolves and lambs shall sooner join
Than they in mutual faith combine.
So seemeth good to Love, who binds
Unequal forms, unequal minds,
Cruel in his brazen yoke,
Pleas'd with too severe a joke.
Myself, in youth's more joyous reign,
My laundress held in pleasing chain;
When pliable to love's delights
My age excus'd the poet's flights:
More wrathful she, than storms that roar
Along the Solway's crooked shore.