A LOVER'S CURSES
I strove with wine my sorrows to efface.
But wine turned tears was all the drink I knew;
I tried a new, strange lass. Each cold embrace
Brought my true love to mind, and colder grew.
"I was bewitched" she cried "by shameful charms;"
And things most vile she vowed she could declare.
Bewitched! 'tis true! but by thy soft white arms,
Thy lovely brows and lavish golden hair!
Such charms had Thetis, born in Nereid cave,
Who drives her dolphin-chariot fast and free
To Peleus o'er the smooth Hæmonian wave,
Love-guided o'er long leagues of azure sea.
Ah me! the magic that dissolves my health
Is a rich suitor in my mistress' eye,
Whom that vile bawd led to her door by stealth
And opened it, and bade me pine and die.
That hag should feed on blood. Her festive bowls
Should be rank gall: and round her haunted room
Wild, wailing ghosts and monitory owls
Should flit forever shrieking death and doom.
Made hunger-mad, may she devour the grass
That grows on graves, and gnaw the bare bones down
Which wolves have left! Stark-naked may she pass,
Chased by the street-dogs through the taunting town!
My curse comes fast. Unerring signs are seen
In stars above us. There are gods who still
Protect unhappy lovers: and our Queen
Venus rains fire on all who slight her will.
O cruel girl! unlearn the wicked art
Of that rapacious hag! For everywhere
Wealth murders love. But thy poor lover's heart
Is ever thine, and thou his dearest care.
A poor man clings close to thy lovely side,
And keeps the crowd off, and thy pathway free;
He hides thee with kind friends, and as his bride
From thy dull, golden thraldom ransoms thee.
Vain is my song. Her door will not unclose
For words, but for a hand that knocks with gold.
O fear me, my proud rival, fear thy foes!
Oft have the wheels of fortune backward rolled!
ELEGY THE SEVENTH
A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT
Thou beckonest ever with a face all smiles,
Then, God of Love, thou lookest fierce and pale.
Unfeeling boy! why waste on me such wiles?
What glory if a god o'er man prevails?
Once more thy snares are set. My Delia flies
To steal a night—with whom I cannot tell.
Can I believe when she denies, denies—
I, for whose sake she tricked her lord so well?
By me, alas! those cunning ways were shown
To fool her slaves. My skill I now deplore!
For me she made excuse to sleep alone,
Or silenced the shrill hinges of her door.
"Twas I prescribed what remedies to use
If mutual passion somewhat fiercely play;
If there were tell-tale bite or rosy bruise,
I showed what simples take the scars away.
Hear me! fond husband of the false and fair,
Make me thy guest, and she shall chastely go!
When she makes talk with men I shall take care,
Nor shall she at the wine her bosom show.
I shall take care she does not nod or smile
To any other, nor her hand imbue
With his fast-flowing wine, that her swift guile
May scribble on the board their rendez-vous.
When she goes out, beware! And if she hie
To Bona Dea, where no males may be,
Straight to the sacred altars follow I,
Who only trust her if my eyes can see.
Oh! oft I pressed that soft hand I adore,
Feigning with some rare ring or seal to play,
And plied thee with strong wine till thou didst snore,
While I, with wine and water, won the day.
I wronged thee, aye! But 'twas not what I meant.
Forgive, for I confess. 'Twas Cupid's spell
O'er-swayed me. Who can foil a god's intent?
Now have I courage all my deeds to tell.
Yes, it was I, unblushing I declare.
At whom thy watch-dog all night long did bay:—
But some-one else now stands insistent there,
Or peers about him and then walks away.
He seems to pass. But soon will backward fare
Alone, and, coughing, at the threshold hide.
What skill hath stolen love! Beware, beware!
Thy boat is drifting on a treacherous tide.
What worth a lovely wife, if others buy
Thy treasure, if thy stoutest bolt betrays,
If in thy very arms she breathes a sigh
For absent joy, and feigns a slight malaise?
Give her in charge to me! I will not spare
A master's whip. Her chain shall constant be.
While thou mayst go abroad and have no care
Who trims his curls, or flaunts his toga free.
Whatever beaux accost her, all is well!
Not the least hint of scandal shall be made.
For I will send them far away, to tell
In some quite distant street their amorous trade.
All this a god decrees; a sibyl wise
In prophet-song did this to me proclaim;
Who when Bellona kindles in her eyes,
Fears neither twisted scourge nor scorching flame.
Then with a battle-axe herself will scar
Her own wild arms, and sprinkle on the ground
Blood, for Bellona's emblems of wild war,
Swift-flowing from the bosom's gaping wound.
A barb of iron rankles in her breast,
As thus she chants the god's command to all:
"Oh, spare a beauty by true love possessed,
Lest some vast after-woe upon thee fall!
"For shouldst thou win her, all thy power will fail,
As from this wound flows forth the fatal gore,
Or as these ashes cast upon the gale,
Are scattered far and kindled never more."
And, O my Delia, the fierce prophetess
Told dreadful things that on thy head should fall:—
I know not what they were—but none the less
I pray my darling may escape them all.
Not for thyself do I forgive thee, no!
'Tis thy sweet mother all my wrath disarms,—
That precious creature, who would come and go,
And lead thee through the darkness to my arms.
Though great the peril, oft the silent dame
Would join our hands together, and all night
Wait watching on the threshold till I came,
Nor ever failed to know my steps aright.
Long be thy life! dear, kind and faithful heart!
Would it were possible my life's whole year
Were at the friendly hearth-stone where thou art!
'Tis for thy sake I hold thy daughter dear.
Be what she will, she is not less thy child.
Oh, teach her to be chaste! Though well she knows
No free-born fillet binds her tresses wild
Nor Roman stole around her ankles flows!
My lot is servile too. Whate'er I see
Of beauty brings her to my fevered eye.
If I should be accused of crime, or be
Dragged up the steep street, by the hair, to die:—
Even then there were no fear that I should lay
Rude hands on thee my sweet! for if o'erswayed
By such blind frenzy in an evil day,
I should bewail the hour my hands were made.
Yet would I have thee chaste and constant be,
Not with a fearful but a faithful heart;
And that in thy fond breast the love of me
Burn but more fondly when we live apart.
She who was never faithful to a friend
Will come to age and misery, and wind
With tremulous ringer from her distaff's end
The ever-twisting wool; and she will bind
Upon her moving looms the finished thread,
Or clean and pick the long skeins white as snow.
And all her fickle gallants when they wed,
Will say, "That old one well deserves her woe."
Venus from heaven will note her flowing tear:
"I smile not on the faithless," she will say.
Her curse on others fall! O, Delia dear!
Let us teach true love to grow old and gray!
ELEGY THE EIGHTH
MESSALA
The Fatal Sisters did this day ordain,
Reeling threads no god can rend,
Foretelling to this man should bend
The tribes of Acquitaine;
And 'neath his legions' yoke
Th' impetuous torrent Atur glide subdued.
All was accomplished as the Fates bespoke;
His triumph then ensued:
The Roman youth, exulting from afar,
Acclaimed his mighty deeds,
And watched the fettered chieftains filing by,
While, drawn by snow-white steeds,
Messala followed on his ivory car,
Laurelled and lifted high!
Not without me this glory and renown!
Let Pyrenees my boast attest!
Tarbella, little mountain-town,
Cold Ocean rolling in the utmost West,
Arar, Garonne, and rushing Rhone,
Will bear me witness due;
And valleys broad the blond Carnutes own,
By Liger darkly blue.
I saw the Cydnus flow,
Winding on in ever-tranquil mood,
And from his awful peak, in cloud and snow,
Cold Taurus o'er his wild Cilicians' brood.
I saw through thronged streets unmolested flying
Th' inviolate white dove of Palestine;
I looked on Tyrian towers, by soundless waters lying,
Whence Tyrians first were masters of the brine.
The flooding Nile I knew;
What time hot Sirius glows,
And Egypt's thirsty field the covering deluge knows;
But whence the wonder flows,
O Father Nile! no mortal e'er did view.
Along thy bank not any prayer is made
To Jove for fruitful showers.
On thee they call! Or in sepulchral shade,
The life-reviving, sky-descended powers
Of bright Osiris hail,—
While, wildly chanting, the barbaric choir,
With timbrels and strange fire,
Their Memphian bull bewail.
Osiris did the plough bestow,
And first with iron urged the yielding ground.
He taught mankind good seed to throw
In furrows all untried;
He plucked fair fruits the nameless trees did hide:
He first the young vine to its trellis bound,
And with his sounding sickle keen
Shore off the tendrils green.
For him the bursting clusters sweet
Were in the wine-press trod;
Song followed soon, a prompting of the god,
And rhythmic dance of lightly leaping feet.
Of Bacchus the o'er-wearied swain receives
Deliverance from all his pains;
Bacchus gives comfort when a mortal grieves,
And mirth to men in chains.
Not to Osiris toils and tears belong,
But revels and delightful song;
Lightly beckoning loves are thine!
Garlands deck thee, god of wine!
We hear thee coming, with the flute's refrain,
With fruit of ivy on thy forehead bound,
Thy saffron vesture streaming to the ground.
And thou hast garments, too, of Tyrian stain,
When thine ecstatic train
Bear forth thy magic ark to mysteries divine.
Immortal guest, our games and pageant share!
Smile on the flowing cup, and hail
With us the Genius of this natal day!
From whose anointed, rose-entwisted hair,
Arabian odors waft away.
If thou the festal bless, I will not fail
To burn sweet incense unto him and thee,
And offerings of Arcadian honey bear.
So grant Messala fortunes ever fair!
Of such a sire the children worthy be!
Till generations two and three
Surround his venerated chair!
See, winding upward through the Latin land,
Yon highway past, the Alban citadel,
At great Messala's mandate made,
In fitted stones and firm-set gravel laid,
Thy monument forever more to stand!
The mountain-villager thy fame will tell,
When through the darkness wending late from Rome,
He foots it smoothly home.
O Genius of this natal day,
May many a year thy gift declare!
Now bright and fair thy pinions soar away,—
Return, thou bright and fair!