Elegy I. to Damon

No longer hope, fond youth, to hide thy pain, No longer blush the secret to impart; Too well I know what broken murmurs mean, And sighs that burst, half stifled, from the heart.

Nor did I learn this skill by Ovid's rule, The magic arts are to thy friend unknown: I never studied but in Myra's school, And only judge thy passion by my own.

Believe me, Love is jealous of his power; Confess betimes the influence of the God The stubborn feel new torments every hour; To merit mercy we must kiss the rod.

In vain, alas! you seek the lonely grove, And in sad numbers to the Thames complain; The shade with kindred softness sooths thy love, Sad numbers sooth, but cannot cure, thy pain.

When Phoebus felt (as story sings) the smart, By the coy beauties of his Daphne fir'd, Not Phoebus' self could profit by his art, Tho' all the Nine the sacred lay inspir'd.

Even should the maid vouchsafe to hear thy song, No tender feelings will its sorrows raise; For verse hath mourn'd imagin'd woes so long, She'll hear unmov'd, and, without pitying, praise.

Nor yet, proud maid, shouldst thou refuse thine ear, Nor are the manners of the poet rude, Nor pours he not the sympathetic tear, His heart by anguish, not his own, subdued.

When fairest names in long oblivion rot, (For fairest names must yield to wasting time) The poet's mistress 'scapes the common lot, And blooms uninjur'd in his living rhime.