_Sic igitur Veneris qui telis accipit ictum, &c._
Thus, therefore, he, who feels the fiery dart Of strong desire transfix his amorous heart, Whether some beauteous boy's alluring face, Or lovelier maid, with unresisting grace, From her each part the winged arrow sends, From whence he first was struck he thither tends; Restless he roams, impatient to be freed, And eager to inject the sprightly seed; For fierce desire does all his mind employ, And ardent love assures approaching joy. Such is the nature of that pleasing smart, Whose burning drops distil upon the heart, The fever of the soul shot from the fair, And the cold ague of succeeding care. If absent, her idea still appears, And her sweet name is chiming in your ears. But strive those pleasing phantoms to remove, And shun the aërial images of love, That feed the flame: when one molests thy mind, Discharge thy loins on all the leaky kind; For that's a wiser way, than to restrain Within thy swelling nerves that hoard of pain. For every hour some deadlier symptom shews, And by delay the gathering venom grows, When kindly applications are not used; The scorpion, love, must on the wound be bruised. On that one object 'tis not safe to stay, But force the tide of thought some other way; The squandered spirits prodigally throw, And in the common glebe of nature sow. Nor wants he all the bliss that lovers feign, Who takes the pleasure, and avoids the pain; For purer joys in purer health abound, And less affect the sickly than the sound. When love its utmost vigour does employ, Even then 'tis but a restless wandering joy; Nor knows the lover in that wild excess, With hands or eyes, what first he would possess; But strains at all, and, fastening where he strains, Too closely presses with his frantic pains; With biting kisses hurts the twining fair, Which shews his joys imperfect, insincere: For, stung with inward rage, he flings around, And strives to avenge the smart on that which gave the wound. But love those eager bitings does restrain, And mingling pleasure mollifies the pain. For ardent hope still flatters anxious grief, And sends him to his foe to seek relief: Which yet the nature of the thing denies; For love, and love alone of all our joys, By full possession does but fan the fire; The more we still enjoy, the more we still desire. Nature for meat and drink provides a space, And, when received, they fill their certain place; Hence thirst and hunger may be satisfied, But this repletion is to love denied: Form, feature, colour, whatsoe'er delight Provokes the lover's endless appetite, These fill no space, nor can we thence remove With lips, or hands, or all our instruments of love: In our deluded grasp we nothing find, But thin aërial shapes, that fleet before the mind. As he, who in a dream with drought is curst, And finds no real drink to quench his thirst, Runs to imagined lakes his heat to steep, And vainly swills and labours in his sleep; So love with phantoms cheats our longing eyes, Which hourly seeing never satisfies: Our hands pull nothing from the parts they strain, But wander o'er the lovely limbs in vain. Nor when the youthful pair more closely join, When hands in hands they lock, and thighs in thighs they twine, Just in the raging foam of full desire, When both press on, both murmur, both expire, They gripe, they squeeze, their humid tongues they dart, As each would force their way to t'other's heart: In vain; they only cruize about the coast; For bodies cannot pierce, nor be in bodies lost, As sure they strive to be, when both engage In that tumultuous momentary rage; So tangled in the nets of love they lie, Till man dissolves in that excess of joy. Then, when the gathered bag has burst its way, And ebbing tides the slackened nerves betray, A pause ensues; and nature nods awhile, Till with recruited rage new spirits boil; And then the same vain violence returns, With flames renewed the erected furnace burns; Again they in each other would be lost, But still by adamantine bars are crost. All ways they try, successless all they prove, To cure the secret sore of lingering love. Besides---- They waste their strength in the venereal strife, And to a woman's will enslave their life; The estate runs out, and mortgages are made, } All offices of friendship are decayed, } Their fortune ruined, and their fame betrayed. } Assyrian ointment from their temples flows, And diamond buckles sparkle in their shoes; The cheerful emerald twinkles on their hands, With all the luxury of foreign lands; And the blue coat, that with embroidery shines, Is drunk with sweat of their o'er-laboured loins. Their frugal father's gains they misemploy, And turn to point, and pearl, and every female toy.