Macer campaigns; who now will thee obey,
O Love! if Macer dare forego thy sway?
Put on the crest, and grasp the burnish'd shield,
Pursue the base deserter to the field:
Or if to winds he gives the loosen'd sail,
Mount thou the deck, and risk the stormy gale:
To dare desert thy sweetly-pleasing pains,
For stormy seas, or sanguinary plains!
'Tis, Cupid! thine, the wanderer to reclaim,
Regain thy honour, and avenge thy name.
If such thou spar'st, a soldier I will be,
The meanest soldier, and abandon thee.
Adieu, ye trifling loves! farewell, ye fair!
The trumpet charms me, I to camps repair;
The martial look, the martial garb assume,
And see the laurel on my forehead bloom.
My vaunts how vain! debar'd the cruel maid,
The warrior softens, and my laurels fade.
Piqu'd to the soul, how frequent have I swore,
Her gate so servile to approach no more?
Unconscious what I did, I still return'd,
Was still denied access; and yet, I burn'd!
Ye youths, whom love commands with angry sway,
Attend his wars, like me, and pleas'd obey.
This iron age approves his sway no more;
All fly to camps for gold, and gold adore:
Yet gold clothes kindred states in hostile arms;
Hence blood and death, confusion and alarms!
Mankind for lust of gold, at once defy
The naval combat, and the stormy sky!
The soldier hopes, by martial spoils, to gain
Flocks without number, and a rich domain:
His hopes obtain'd by every horrid crime,
He seeks for marble in each foreign clime:
A thousand yoke sustain the pillar'd freight,
And Rome, surpris'd, beholds the' enormous weight.
Let such with moles the furious deep enclose,
Where fish may swim unhurt, though winter blows:
Let flocks and villas call the spoiler, lord!
And be the spoiler by the fair ador'd!
Let one we know, a whip'd barbarian slave,
Live like a king, with kingly pride behave:
Be ours the joys of economic ease,
From bloody fields remote, and stormy seas.
In gold, alas! the venal fair delight:
Since beauty sighs for spoil, for spoil I'll fight.
In all my plunder Nemesis shall shine;
Yours be the profit, be the peril mine:
To deck your heavenly charms the silk-worm dies,
Embroidery labours, and the shuttle flies.
For you, be rifled ocean's pearly store;
To you Pactolus send his golden ore.
Ye Indians, blacken'd by the nearer sun,
Before her steps in splendid liveries run;
For you shall wealthy Tyre and Afric vie,
To yield the purple, and the scarlet dye.