Classic Poem

Why do you send to break my heart
With your complaints? We must not part;
Nor can th'immortal gods consent, nor I,
My glory and my guard, that thou the first shouldst die.
Ah! if a more untimely fate
On thee, my soul's ally, should wait,
Why should I keep the wretched remnant here,
Imperfect without thee, and never half so dear?
One day shall be the last of both;
I have not made a traitor's oath —
Yes, we will go, together will we go,
If you precede, I follow to the shades below.
Me nor Chimera breathing fire,
Nor Gyas, if he could respire,
With all his hundred hands, should force from thee;
So justice, heav'nly pow'r, and so the fates decree.
If Libra rul'd my natal hour,
Or Scorpio's more unlucky pow'r,
Ey'd with the menace of an early grave,
Or Capricorn, the tyrant of the western wave.
Our horoscope, at all events,
Ev'n to a miracle consents —
Thee, lucid Jove sav'd from Saturnian spite,
And clipt the wings of fate, and stopt its rapid flight,
Upon the day the crouded town
Thrice hail'd in claps thy just renown —
Me near that time a falling trunk had brain'd,
If Faunus, shield of bards, had not the stroke refrain'd.
These mercies therefore bear in mind,
And bring the victims you design'd,
And build the fane you vow'd upon the spot;
A slaughter'd lamb from me will suit by humbler lot.