Perhaps some pity at my tale of woe. 90
Oh inauspicious flame--'tis mine to prove
A matchless instance of disastrous love.
Ah spare me, gentle Pow'r!--If such thou be
Let not thy deeds, and nature disagree.
Now I revere thy fires, thy bow, thy darts:
Now own thee sov'reign of all human hearts.
Spare me, and I will worship at no shrine
With vow and sacrifice, save only thine.
Remove! no--grant me still this raging woe!
Sweet is the wretchedness, that lovers know: 100
But pierce hereafter (should I chance to see
One destined mine) at once both her and me.
___________________________________________________________14

Such were the trophies, that in earlier days,
By vanity seduced I toil'd to raise,
Studious yet indolent, and urg'd by youth,
That worst of teachers, from the ways of Truth;
Till learning taught me, in his shady bow'r,
To quit love's servile yoke, and spurn his pow'r.
Then, on a sudden, the fierce flame supprest,
A frost continual settled on my breast, 110
Whence Cupid fears his flames extinct to see,
And Venus dreads a Diomede15 in me.

1 i.e. "In my nineteenth year."

2 Venus (Aphrodite), so called from Amethus in Cyprus, where she
had a temple.