Page:Ovid's Metamorphoses (Vol. 2) - tr Garth, Dryden, et. al. (1727).djvu/76

Yet with her Life renew'd, her Love returns,
And faintly thus her cruel Fate she mourns:
'Tis just, ye Gods! was my false Reason blind?
To write a Secret of this tender kind?
With female Craft I shou'd at first have strove,
By dubious Hints to sound his distant Love;
And try'd those useful, tho' dissembled, Arts,
Which Women practise on disdainful Hearts:
I shou'd have watch'd whence the black Storm might rise,
E're I had trusted the unfaithful Skies.
Now on the rouling Billows I am tost,
And with extended Sails, on the blind Shelves am lost.
Did not indulgent Heav'n my Doom foretel,
When from my Hand the fatal Letter fell?
What Madness seiz'd my Soul? and urg'd me on
To take the only Course to be undone?
I cou'd my self have told the moving Tale
With such alluring Grace as must prevail;
Then had his Eyes beheld my blushing Fears,
My rising Sighs, and my descending Tears;
Round his dear Neck these Arms I then had spread,
And, if rejected, at his Feet been dead:
If singly these had not his Thoughts inclin'd,
Yet all united would have shock'd his Mind.
Perhaps, my careless Page might be in fault,
And in a luckless Hour the fatal Message brought;
Business, and worldly Thoughts might fill his Breast,
Sometimes ev'n Love it self may be an irksome Guest:
He cou'd not else have treated me with Scorn,
For Caunus was not of a Tygress born;
Nor Steel, nor Adamant has fenc'd his Heart,
Like mine 'tis naked to the burning Dart.
Away false Fears! he must, he shall be mine,
In Death alone I will my Claim resign;
'Tis vain to wish my written Crime unknown,
And for my Guilt much vainer to atone.

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