Ode Xxxi.[1]

Armed with hyacinthine rod, (Arms enough for such a god,) Cupid bade me wing my pace, And try with him the rapid race. O'er many a torrent, wild and deep, By tangled brake and pendent steep. With weary foot I panting flew, Till my brow dropt with chilly dew. And now my soul, exhausted, dying, To my lip was faintly flying; And now I thought the spark had fled, When Cupid hovered o'er my head, And fanning light his breezy pinion, Rescued my soul from death's dominion; Then said, in accents half-reproving. "Why hast thou been a foe to loving?"

The design of this little fiction is to intimate, that much greater pain attends insensibility than can ever result from the tenderest impressions of love.

"The facility with which Cupid recovers him, signifies that the sweets of love make us easily forget any solicitudes which he may occasion."--LA FOSSE.