Classic Poem

Two rivers in fam'd Gallia's bounds are known,
The gentle Arar and the rapid Rhone;
Through pleasing banks, where love-sick shepherds dream,
Mild Arar softly steals her lingering stream:
Her wave so still, the' exploring eye deceives,
That sees not if it comes, or if it leaves:
With silver graces ever dimpled o'er,
Reflects each flower, and smiles on every shore;
Each youth with joy the' enchanting scene surveys,
And thinks for him the amorous stream delays;
While the sly nymph above unseen to flow,
To her own purpose true, steals calm below.
More rapid rolls the Rhone, tumultuous flood,
All raging unwithheld, and unwithstood;
In vain or fertile fields invite its stay,
In vain or roughest rocks oppose its way;
It bounds o'er all, and, insolent of force,
Still hurries headlong on a downward course.
Sometimes, 'tis true, we snatch with painful sight,
Across the working foam a moment's light;
The momentary vision snatch'd again,
The troubled river boils and froths amain.
To which of these, alas! shall I confide?
Say, shall I plunge in Rhone's impetuous tide,
And by the various eddies roll'd about,
Just as the whirlpools guide, suck'd in, cast out!
Till, through a thousand giddy circles tost,
In the broad ocean's boundless floods I'm lost?
Or, tell me, friends — less venturous, shall I lave
My glowing limbs in Arar's gentle wave?
In whose fair bosom beauteous prospects rise,
The earth in verdure, and in smiles the skies:
With thoughtless rapture every charm explore,
Heav'd by no breeze, or wafted to no shore:
Till trusting credulous to the false serene,
I sink to ruin in the pleasing scene.