Yet, when the loss of her you're mourning,
How I shall laugh at all your woe!
How I'll remind you of this warning,
And laugh, "Ha! ha! I told you so!"
Again Endorsing the Lady
Book II, Elegy 2
"Liber eram et vacuo meditabar vivere lecto——"
I
I was free. I thought that I had entered Love's Antarctic Zone.
"A truce to sentiment," I said. "My nights shall be my own."
But Love has double-crossed me. How can Beauty be so fair?
The grace of her, the face of her—and oh, her yellow hair!
And oh, the wondrous walk of her! So doth a goddess glide.
Jove's sister—ay, or Pallas—hath no statelier a stride.
Fair as Ischomache herself, the Lapithanian maid;
Or Brimo when at Mercury's side her virgin form she laid.
Surrender now, ye goddesses whom erst the shepherd spied!
Upon the heights of Ida lay your vestitures aside!
And though she reach the countless years of the Cumæan Sibyl,
May never, never Age at those delightful features nibble!
II