Classic Poem

To my last labour lend thy sacred aid,
O A RETHUSA : that the cruel Maid
With deep remorse may read the mournful song,
For mournful lays to Gallus ' love belong.
(What Muse in sympathy will not bestow
Some tender strains to soothe my Gallus ' woe?)
So may thy waters pure of briny stain
Traverse the waves of the Sicilian main.
Sing, mournful Muse, of Gallus ' luckless love,
While the goats browse along the cliffs above.
Nor silent is the waste while we complain,
The woods return the long-resounding strain.
Whither, ye fountain-Nymphs, were ye withdrawn,
To what lone woodland, or what devious lawn,
When Gallus ' bosom languish'd with the fire
Of hopeless love, and unallay'd desire?
For neither by th' Aonian spring you stray'd,
Nor roam'd Parnassus' heights, nor Pindus' hallow'd shade.
The pines of Maenalus were heard to mourn,
And sounds of woe along the groves were born.
And sympathetic tears the laurel shed,
And humbler shrubs declin'd their drooping head.
All wept his fate, when to despair resign'd
Beneath a desart-cliff he lay reclin'd.
Lyceus' rocks were hung with many a tear,
And round the swain his flocks forlorn appear.
Nor scorn, celestial bard, a Poet's name;
Renown'd A DONIS by the lonely stream
Tended his flock. — As thus he lay along,
The swains and awkward neatherds round him throng.
Wet from the winter-mast M ENALCAS came
All ask, what Beauty rais'd the fatal flame.
The God of verse vouchsafed to join the rest;
He said, What phrensy thus torments thy breast?
While she, thy darling, thy L YCORIS scorns
Thy proffer'd love, and for another burns,
With whom o'er winter-wastes she wanders far,
'Midst camps, and clashing arms, and boisterous war.
S YLVANUS came with rural garlands crown'd,
And wav'd the lillies long, and flowering fennel round.
Next we beheld the gay Arcadian God;
His smiling cheeks with bright vermilion glow'd.
For ever wilt thou heave the bursting sigh?
Is Love regardful of the weeping eye?
Love is not cloy'd with tears; alas, no more
Than bees luxurious with the balmy flow'r,
Than goats with foliage, than the grassy plain
With silver rills and soft refreshing rain.
P AN spoke; and thus the Youth with grief opprest;
Arcadians, hear, O hear my last request;
O ye, to whom the sweetest lays belong,
O let my sorrows on your hills be sung:
If your soft flutes shall celebrate my woes,
How will my bones in deepest peace repose!
Ah had I been with you a country-swain,
And prun'd the vine, and fed the bleating train;
Had P HYLLIS , or some other rural Fair,
Or black A MYNTAS been my darling care;
(Beauteous though black; what lovelier flower is seen
Than the dark violeTon the painted green?)
These in the bower had yielded all their charms,
And sunk with mutual raptures in my arms;
P HYLLIS had crown'd my head with garlands gay,
A MYNTAS sung the pleasing hours away.
Here, O L YCORIS , purls the limpid spring,
Bloom all the meads, and all the woodlands sing;
Here let me press thee to my panting breast,
Till youth, and joy, and life itself be past.
Banish'd by love o'er hostile lands I stray,
And mingle in the battle's dread array;
Whilst thou, relentless to my constant flame,
(Ah could I disbelieve the voice of Fame!)
Far from thy home, unaided and forlorn,
Far from thy love, thy faithful love, art born,
On the bleak Alps with chilling blasts to pine,
Or wander waste along the frozen Rhine.
Ye icy paths, O spare her tender form!
O spare those heavenly charms, thou wintry storm!
Hence let me hasten to some desart-grove,
And soothe with songs my long-unanswer'd love.
I go, in some lone wilderness to suit
Eubaean lays to my Sicilian flute.
Better with beasts of prey to make abode
In the deep cavern, or the darksome wood;
And carve on trees the story of my woe,
Which with the growing bark shall ever grow.
Meanwhile with woodland-nymphs, a lovely throng,
The winding groves of Maenalus along
I roam at large; or chace the foaming boar;
Or with sagacious hounds the wilds explore,
Careless of cold. And now methinks I bound
O'er rocks and cliffs, and hear the woods resound;
And now with beating heart I seem to wing
The Cretan arrow from the Parthian string — —
As if I thus my phrensy could forego,
As if love's God could melt at human woe.
Alas! nor nymphs nor heavenly songs delight —
Farewell, ye groves! the groves no more invite.
No pains no miseries of man can move
The unrelenting Deity of love.
To quench your thirst in Hebrus' frozen flood,
To make the Scythian snows your drear abode;
Or feed your flock on Aethiopian plains,
When Sirius' fiery constellation reigns,
(When deep-imbrown'd the languid herbage lies,
And in the elm the vivid verdure dies)
Were all in vain. L OVE'S unresisted sway
Extends to all, and we must L OVE obey.
'Tis done; ye Nine , here ends your poet's strain
In pity sung to soothe his Gallus ' pain.
While leaning on a flowery bank I twine
The flexile osiers, and the basket join.
Celestial Nine , your sacred influence bring,
And soothe my Gallus ' sorrows while I sing:
Gallus , my much-belov'd! for whom I feel
The flame of purest friendship rising still:
So by a brook the verdant alders rise,
When fostering zephyrs fan the vernal skies.
Let us be gone: at eve, the shade annoys
With noxious damps, and hurts the singer's voice,
The juniper breathes bitter vapours round,
That kill the springing corn, and blast the ground,
Homeward, my sated goats, now let us hie;
Lo beamy Hesper gilds the western sky.