Whose pious rule a warlike race obey!

In wavy gold thy summer vales are dress’d;

Thy autumns bind with copious fruit oppress’d:

With flocks and herds each grassy plain is stored;

And fish of every fin thy seas afford:

Their affluent joys the grateful realms confess;

And bless the power that still delights to bless,

Gracious permit this prayer, imperial dame!

Forbear to know my lineage, or my name:

Urge not this breast to heave, these eyes to weep;

In sweet oblivion let my sorrows sleep!

My woes awaked, will violate your ear,

And to this gay censorious train appear

A whiny vapour melting in a tear.”


“Their gifts the gods resumed (the queen rejoin’d),

Exterior grace, and energy of mind,

When the dear partner of my nuptial joy,

Auxiliar troops combined, to conquer Troy.

My lord’s protecting hand alone would raise

My drooping verdure, and extend my praise!

Peers from the distant Samian shore resort:

Here with Dulichians join’d, besiege the court:

Zacynthus, green with ever-shady groves,

And Ithaca, presumptuous, boast their loves:

Obtruding on my choice a second lord,

They press the Hymenaean rite abhorr’d.

Misrule thus mingling with domestic cares,

I live regardless of my state affairs;

Receive no stranger-guest, no poor relieve;

But ever for my lord in secret grieve!—

This art, instinct by some celestial power,

I tried, elusive of the bridal hour:


“‘Ye peers, (I cry,) who press to gain a heart,

Where dead Ulysses claims no future part;

Rebate your loves, each rival suit suspend,

Till this funeral web my labours end:

Cease, till to good Laertes I bequeath

A pall of state, the ornament of death.

For when to fate he bows, each Grecian dame

With just reproach were licensed to defame,

Should he, long honour’d in supreme command,

Want the last duties of a daughter’s hand.’

The fiction pleased; their loves I long elude;

The night still ravell’d what the day renew’d: