No More Learning

See, my colour comes and goes,
My poor heart flutters, Lydia, and the dew,
Down my cheek soft stealing, shows
What lingering torments rack me through and through.
Oh, 'tis agony to see
Those snowwhite shoulders scarr'd in drunken fray,
Or those ruby lips, where he
Has left strange marks, that show how rough his play!
Never, never look to find
A faithful heart in him whose rage can harm
Sweetest lips, which Venus kind
Has tinctured with her quintessential charm.
Happy, happy, happy they
Whose living love, untroubled by all strife,
Binds them till the last sad day,
Nor parts asunder but with parting life!




XIV

O NAVIS, REFERENT.


O LUCKLESS bark! new waves will force you back
To sea. O, haste to make the haven yours!
E'en now, a helpless wrack,
You drift, despoil'd of oars;
The Afric gale has dealt your mast a wound;
Your sailyards groan, nor can your keel sustain,
Till lash'd with cables round,
A more imperious main.
Your canvass hangs in ribbons, rent and torn;
No gods are left to pray to in fresh need.
A pine of Pontus born
Of noble forest breed,
You boast your name and lineage--madly blind!
Can painted timbers quell a seaman's fear?
Beware! or else the wind
Makes you its mock and jeer.
Your trouble late made sick this heart of mine,
And still I love you, still am ill at ease.
O, shun the sea, where shine
The thick-sown Cyclades!




XV.

PASTOR CUM TRAHERET.


When the false swain was hurrying o'er the deep
His Spartan hostess in the Idaean bark,
Old Nereus laid the unwilling winds asleep,
That all to Fate might hark,
Speaking through him:--"Home in ill hour you take
A prize whom Greece shall claim with troops untold,
Leagued by an oath your marriage tie to break
And Priam's kingdom old.
Alas! what deaths you launch on Dardan realm!
What toils are waiting, man and horse to tire!
See! Pallas trims her aegis and her helm,
Her chariot and her ire.
Vainly shall you, in Venus' favour strong,
Your tresses comb, and for your dames divide
On peaceful lyre the several parts of song;
Vainly in chamber hide
From spears and Gnossian arrows, barb'd with fate,
And battle's din, and Ajax in the chase
Unconquer'd; those adulterous locks, though late,
Shall gory dust deface.
Hark! 'tis the death-cry of your race! look back!
Ulysses comes, and Pylian Nestor grey;
See! Salaminian Teucer on your track,
And Sthenelus, in the fray
Versed, or with whip and rein, should need require,
No laggard. Merion too your eyes shall know
From far.