Oh scarce a youth, yet scarce a tender boy! Oh useful time for lovers to employ! Pride of thy age, and glory of thy race, Come to these arms, and melt in this embrace! The vows you never will return, receive; And take, at least, the love you will not give. See, while I write, my words are lost in tears! The less my sense, the more my love appears. 110 Sure 'twas not much to bid one kind adieu, (At least to feign was never hard to you) 'Farewell, my Lesbian love,' you might have said; Or coldly thus, 'Farewell, O Lesbian maid!' No tear did you, no parting kiss receive, Nor knew I then how much I was to grieve. No lover's gift your Sappho could confer, And wrongs and woes were all you left with her. No charge I gave you, and no charge could give, But this, 'Be mindful of our loves, and live.' 120 Now by the Nine, those powers adored by me, And Love, the god that ever waits on thee, When first I heard (from whom I hardly knew) That you were fled, and all my joys with you, Like some sad statue, speechless, pale, I stood, Grief chill'd my breast, and stopp'd my freezing blood; No sigh to rise, no tear had power to flow, Fix'd in a stupid lethargy of woe: But when its way the impetuous passion found, I rend my tresses, and my breast I wound: 130 I rave, then weep; I curse, and then complain; Now swell to rage, now melt in tears again. Not fiercer pangs distract the mournful dame, Whose first-born infant feeds the funeral flame. My scornful brother with a smile appears, Insults my woes, and triumphs in my tears; His hated image ever haunts my eyes; 'And why this grief? thy daughter lives!' he cries. Stung with my love, and furious with despair, All torn my garments, and my bosom bare, 140 My woes, thy crimes, I to the world proclaim; Such inconsistent things are love and shame! 'Tis thou art all my care and my delight, My daily longing, and my dream by night; Oh night more pleasing than the brightest day, When fancy gives what absence takes away, And, dress'd in all its visionary charms, Restores my fair deserter to my arms! Then round your neck in wanton wreaths I twine, Then you, methinks, as fondly circle mine: 150 A thousand tender words I hear and speak; A thousand melting kisses give and take: Then fiercer joys, I blush to mention these, Yet, while I blush, confess how much they please. But when, with day, the sweet delusions fly, And all things wake to life and joy but I, As if once more forsaken, I complain, And close my eyes to dream of you again: Then frantic rise, and like some Fury rove Through lonely plains, and through the silent grove; 160 As if the silent grove, and lonely plains, That knew my pleasures, could relieve my pains. I view the grotto, once the scene of love, The rocks around, the hanging roofs above, That charm'd me more, with native moss o'ergrown, Than Phrygian marble, or the Parian stone; I find the shades that veil'd our joys before;