Both faint, both pale, and breathless now appear,
The Boy with Pain, the am'rous God with Fear.
He ran, and rais'd him bleeding from the Ground,
Chafes his cold Limbs, and wipes the fatal Wound:
Then Herbs of noblest Juice in vain applies;
The Wound is Mortal, and his Skill defies.
As in a water'd Garden's blooming Walk,
When some rude Hand has bruis'd its tender Stalk,
A fading Lilly droops its languid Head,
And bends to Earth, it's Life, and Beauty fled:
So Hyacinth, with Head reclin'd, decays,
And, sickning, now no more his Charms displays.
O thou art gone, my Boy, Apollo cry'd,
Defrauded of thy Youth in all its Pride!
Thou, once my Joy, art all my Sorrow now;
And to my guilty Hand my Grief I owe,
Yet for my self I might the Fault remove,
Unless to sport, and play a Fault should prove,
Unless it too were call'd a Fault to love.
Oh cou'd I for thee, or but with thee, dye!
But cruel Fates to me that Pow'r deny.
Yet on my Tongue thou shalt for ever dwell;
Thy Name my Lyre shall sound, my Verse shall tell;
And to a Flow'r transform'd, unheard of yet,
Stamp'd on thy Leaves my Cries thou shalt repeat.
The time shall come, prophetick I foreknow,
When, join'd to thee, a mighty [1] Chief shall grow,
And with my Plaints his Name thy Leaf shall show.
While Phœbus thus the Laws of Fate reveal'd,
Behold, the Blood which stain'd the verdant Field,
Is Blood no longer; but a Flow'r full blown
Far brighter than the Tyrian Scarlet shone.
A Lilly's Form it took; its purple Hue
Was all that made a Diff'rence to the View.
Nor stopt he here; the God upon its Leaves
The sad Expression of his Sorrow weaves;
- ↑ Ajax.
