When stately in the dance you swim the harmonious maze.

But blest o’er all, the youth with heavenly charms,

Who clasps the bright perfection in his arms!

Never, I never view’d till this blest hour

Such finish’d grace! I gaze, and I adore!

Thus seems the palm with stately honours crown’d

By Phœbus’ altars; thus o’erlooks the ground;

The pride of Delos. (By the Delian coast,

I voyaged, leader of a warrior-host,

But ah, how changed! from thence my sorrow flows;

O fatal voyage, source of all my woes;)

Raptured I stood, and as this hour amazed,

With reverence at the lofty wonder gazed:

Raptured I stand! for earth ne’er knew to bear

A plant so stately, or a nymph so fair.

Awed from access, I lift my suppliant hands;

For Misery, O queen! before thee stands.

Twice ten tempestuous nights I roll’d, resign’d

To roaring billows, and the warring wind;

Heaven bade the deep to spare; but heaven, my foe,

Spares only to inflict some mightier woe.

Inured to cares, to death in all its forms;

Outcast I rove, familiar with the storms.

Once more I view the face of human kind:

Oh let soft pity touch thy generous mind!

Unconscious of what air I breathe, I stand

Naked, defenceless on a narrow land.

Propitious to my wants a vest supply

To guard the wretched from the inclement sky:

So may the gods, who heaven and earth control,

Crown the chaste wishes of thy virtuous soul,

On thy soft hours their choicest blessings shed;

Blest with a husband be thy bridal bed;

Blest be thy husband with a blooming race,

And lasting union crown your blissful days.

The gods, when they supremely bless, bestow

Firm union on their favourites below;

Then envy grieves, with inly-pining hate;

The good exult, and heaven is in our state.”


To whom the nymph: “O stranger, cease thy care;

Wise is thy soul, but man is born to bear;

Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales,

And the good suffers, while the bad prevails.