He professes bitter jealousy of a handsome stripling whose beauty Lydia praises (I, xiii). She is wasting her admiration; she will find him unfaithful; Horace knows him well: Oh, trebly blest, and blest for ever, Are they, whom true affection binds, In whom no doubts nor janglings sever The union of their constant minds; But life in blended current flows, Serene and sunny to the close. If anyone now reads "Lalla Rookh," he will recall an exquisite rendering of these lines from the lips of veiled Nourmahal: There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told, When two, that are linked in one heavenly tie, With heart never changing and brow never cold, Love on through all ills, and love on till they die. One hour of a passion so sacred is worth Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss; And oh! if there be an Elysium on earth, It is this, it is this! But, perhaps, if a jury of scholars could be polled as to the most enchanting amongst all Horace's lovesongs, the highest vote would be cast in favour of the famous "Reconciliation" of the roving poet with this or with some other Lydia (III, ix). The pair of former lovers, mutually faithless, exchange defiant experience of their several infidelities; then, the old affection reviving through the contact of their altercation, agree to discard their intervening paramours, and return to their first allegiance. _He._ Whilst I was dear and thou wert kind, And I, and I alone, might lie Upon thy snowy breast reclined, Not Persia's king so blest as I. _She._ Whilst I to thee was all in all, Nor Chloe might with Lydia vie, Renowned in ode or madrigal, Not Roman Ilia famed as I. _He._ I now am Thracian Chloe's slave, With hand and voice that charms the air, For whom even death itself I'd brave, So fate the darling girl would spare. _She._ I dote on Calais; and I Am all his passion, all his care, For whom a double death I'd die, So fate the darling boy would spare. _He._ What if our ancient love return, And bind us with a closer tie, If I the fair-haired Chloe spurn, And, as of old, for Lydia sigh? _She._ Though lovelier than yon star is he, Thou fickle as an April sky, More churlish too than Adria's sea, With thee I'd live, with thee I'd die. The austere Scaliger used to say that he would rather have written this ode than be King of Spain and the Indies: Milton's Eve expresses her devotion to Adam in an apostrophe paraphrased from its closing lines.