ODE 3.
[To Cupid.]
Aidens, why spare ye?
Or whether not dare ye
Correct the blind Shooter?'
"Because wanton Venus,
So oft that doth pain us,
Is her son's tutor.
"Now in the Spring,
He proveth his wing;
The field is his Bower:
And as the small bee,
About flyeth he,
From flower to flower.
"And wantonly roves
Abroad in the groves,
And in the air hovers;
Which when it him deweth,
His feathers he meweth
In sighs of true Lovers.
"And since doomed by Fate
(That well knew his hate)
That he should be blind;
For very despite,
Our eyes be his White:
So wayward his kind!
"If his shafts losing
(Ill his mark choosing)
Or his bow broken;
The moan Venus maketh,
And care that she taketh,
Cannot be spoken.
"To Vulcan commending
Her love; and straight sending
Her doves and her sparrows,
With kisses, unto him:
And all but to woo him
To make her son arrows.
"Telling what he hath done;
Saith she,'Right mine own son!'
In her arms she him closes.
Sweets on him fans,
Laid in down of her swans;
His sheets, leaves of roses.
"And feeds him with kisses;
Which oft when he misses,
He ever is froward.
The mother's o'erjoying
Makes, by much coying,
The child so untoward."
Yet in a fine net,
That a spider set,
The Maidens had caught him.
Had she not been near him,
And chancèd to hear him;
More good they had taught him!
To my worthy friend Master John Savage of the Inner Temple.