"It is not from Calliope, nor is it from Apollo,
But from my own sweet lady-love my inspiration springs.
If in resplendent purple robe of Cos my darling dresses,
I'll fill a portly volume with the Coan garment's praise:
Or if her truant tresses wreathe her forehead with caresses,
The tresses of her queenly brow demand her poet's lays.
Or if, perchance, se strike the speaking lyre with ivory fingers,
I marvel how those nimble fingers run the chords along;
Or if above her slumber-drooping eyes a shadow lingers,
My trancèd mind is sure to find a thousand themes of song.
Or if for love's delightful strife repose awhile be broken,
Oh! I could write an Iliad of our sallies and alarms;
If anything at all she's done—if any word she's spoken—
From out of nothing rise at once innumerable charms."
A charmer with so perfect a tout ensemble was certain to command the passionate admiration of so inflammable a lover; and hence the history of his erotic poetry consists in an alternation of his raptures, his remonstrances, his despairs, according as Cynthia was kind, or volatile, or cruel. And to tell the truth, a lover of Cynthia could have had little smooth sailing on a sea where the winds of jealousy were evermore rising to a hurricane. He may not have been worthy of ideal fidelity, but certainly from the traits we have of Cynthia's faulty character, she must have given her bard and lover only too much cause for uneasiness. Fitful in her fancies, alike jealous and inconstant, she was expensive in her tastes,
