ODE III.—CUPID BENIGHTED.[1]
'Twas at the solemn midnight hour,
When silence reigns with awful pow'r,
Just when the bright and glittering Bear[2]
Is yielding to her keeper's care;
When, spent with toil, with cares oppress'd,
Man's busy race has sunk to rest,
Sly Cupid, sent by cruel fate,
Stood loudly knocking at my gate.
"Who's there," I cried, "at this late hour?
Who is it batters thus my door?
Begone! you break my blissful dreams."
But he, on mischief bent, it seems,
With feeble voice and piteous cries
In childish accents thus replies:
"Be not alarm'd, kind sir, 'tis I,
A little, wretched, wandering boy.
Pray ope the door—I've lost my way
This moonless night—alone I stray:
I'm stiff with cold, I'm drench'd all o'er;
For pity's sake pray ope the door."
Touch'd with this simple tale of wo,
And little dreaming of a foe,
I rose, lit up my lamp, and straight
Undid the fastenings of the gate;
And there indeed a boy I spied,
With bow and quiver by his side.
Wings too he wore—a strange attire!
My guest I seated near the fire,
And while the blazing fagots shine,
I chafed his little hands in mine.
His dank and dripping locks I wrung,
That down his shoulders loosely hung.
Soon as his cheeks began to glow,
"Come now," he cries, "let's try this bow
For much I fear, this rainy night,
The wet and damp have spoil'd it quite."
That instant twang'd the sounding string,
Loud as the whizzing gadfly's wing:
Too truly aim'd, the fatal dart
My bosom pierced with painful smart.[3]
Up sprung the boy with laughing eyes,
And, "Wish me joy, mine host," he cries.
"My bow is sound in ev'ry part;
Thou'lt find the arrow in thy heart."
- ↑ Longuepierre has observed that this is one of the most beautiful odes in the collection; and it is, I think, a good proof of the truth of this remark, that after a lapse of more than two thousand years its spirit and meaning are still preserved, and are to be found imbodied in a pretty little song, which was a few years ago a popular favourite.
- ↑ The Bear and Boötes, or the Bearkeeper, are two constellations near the North Pole.
- ↑ In the original it is "pierced through the middle of my liver." The ancients, as may be proved by numerous passages, considered the liver to be the seat of the affections; and it is reasonable to suppose that the sympathy existing between this organ and the brain was as well known to them as it is to physicians in the present day.