Even then there were no fear that I should lay
Rude hands on thee my sweet! for if o'erswayed
By such blind frenzy in an evil day,
I should bewail the hour my hands were made.

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