But why should I despair? I'm sure he burns With equal flames, and languishes by turns. Whene'er I stoop he offers at a kiss, And when my arms I stretch, he stretches his. His eye with pleasure on my face he keeps, He smiles my smiles, and when I weep he weeps. _70 Whene'er I speak, his moving lips appear To utter something, which I cannot hear. 'Ah wretched me! I now begin too late To find out all the long-perplexed deceit; It is myself I love, myself I see; The gay delusion is a part of me. I kindle up the fires by which I burn, And my own beauties from the well return. Whom should I court? how utter my complaint? Enjoyment but produces my restraint, _80 And too much plenty makes me die for want. How gladly would I from myself remove! And at a distance set the thing I love. My breast is warmed with such unusual fire, I wish him absent whom I most desire. And now I faint with grief; my fate draws nigh; In all the pride of blooming youth I die. Death will the sorrows of my heart relieve. Oh, might the visionary youth survive, I should with joy my latest breath resign! _90 But oh! I see his fate involved in mine.' This said, the weeping youth again returned To the clear fountain, where again he burned; His tears defaced the surface of the well With circle after circle, as they fell: And now the lovely face but half appears, O'errun with wrinkles, and deformed with tears. 'All whither,' cries Narcissus, 'dost thou fly? Let me still feed the flame by which I die; Let me still see, though I'm no further blessed.' _100 Then rends his garment off, and beats his breast: His naked bosom reddened with the blow, In such a blush as purple clusters show, Ere yet the sun's autumnal heats refine Their sprightly juice, and mellow it to wine. The glowing beauties of his breast he spies, And with a new redoubled passion dies. As wax dissolves, as ice begins to run, And trickle into drops before the sun; So melts the youth, and languishes away, _110 His beauty withers, and his limbs decay; And none of those attractive charms remain, To which the slighted Echo sued in vain. She saw him in his present misery, Whom, spite of all her wrongs, she grieved to see. She answered sadly to the lover's moan, Sighed back his sighs, and groaned to every groan: 'Ah youth! beloved in vain,' Narcissus cries; 'Ah youth! beloved in vain,' the nymph replies. 'Farewell,' says he; the parting sound scarce fell _120 From his faint lips, but she replied, 'Farewell.' Then on the unwholesome earth he gasping lies, Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes. To the cold shades his flitting ghost retires, And in the Stygian waves itself admires. For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn, Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn; And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn: When, looking for his corpse, they only found