ODE XX.—TO HIS MISTRESS.
On desert Phrygia's silent sands
Poor Niobe an image stands;[1]
And Pandion's injured child, we know,[2]
Still, twittering, tells her tale of wo.
But would the gods the change allow,
And hear and grant my tender vow,
Dear girl! thy mirror I would be,
That thou might'st always smile on me.
Thy vest I'd be, to guard with care
Those heaving breasts, and nestle there.
Oh! would I were a limpid wave,
Thy soft and beauteous limbs to lave;
Thy perfumed oil, that I might share
The glory of thy golden hair!
Or, dearer still, that slender zone,
Which makes thy beauties all its own:
Thy pearly chain, that shines so fair,
But cannot with thy neck compare:
Thy very sandal I would be,[3]
To kiss the foot that trod on me!
- ↑ Niobe was the daughter of Tantalus, king of Phrygia, and wife of Amphion, king of Thebes; by whom, according to Homer, having six sons and six daughters, she became so proud of her offspring and high birth, that she had the vanity to prefer herself to Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana; who, to revenge the affront offered to their parent, in one day slew all her children: on which Niobe was struck dumb with grief, and remained stupid. For that reason the poets have feigned her to be turned into a stone.—See Ovid's Met, book vi.
- ↑ The poet here alludes to the fabled transformation of Philomela. See note, p. 25.
- ↑ This ode has been imitated by many succeeding writers; and in our immortal bard, who needed no copy but nature, the following passage can only be said to present a remarkable coincidence:—
"See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
Oh! that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!"
Romeo and Juliet, act 2, scene 2.