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.