O weak deserters to misfortune's part,
By false affection thus to pierce her heart!
When she had soar'd, to let your arrows fly,
And fetch her bleeding from the middle sky!
And can her virtue, springing from the ground,
Her flight recover, and disdain the wound,
When cleaving love, and human interest, bind
The broken force of her aspiring mind;
As round the gen'rous eagle, which in vain
Exerts her strength, the serpent wreaths his train,