What time the fair perfidious shepherd bore The beauteous Helen back to Ilion's shore, To sleep the howling waves were won By Nerceus, Ocean's hoary son, While round the liquid realms he sung, From guilty love, what dire disasters sprung.
Thee, tainted Youth, what omens dire attend! Thy neck and Ilion's soon to Greece shall bend. To man and horse what sweat and blood, What carnage float down Xanthus' flood! What wrath on Troy shall Greece infuriate turn! What glittering domes, and spires, and temples burn!
In vain you boast the Queen of beauty's smiles, Her charms, her floating curls, her amourous wiles, These, these alas! will nought avail While Cretan arrows round you sail! And, tho' the fates awhile such guilt may spare, Vile dust at length shall smear that golden hair!
Trace back, vain Youth! sad Ilion's fate of old! Ulysses' sons and Nestor's yet behold, Teucer's and Diomede's more dread Horrific war shall round you shed; Then shall ye trembling fly like timid deer When hungry wolves are howling in their rear.
By promise Vain of Universal Sway Lur'd you from Greece the beauteous Queen away? In less than ten revolving years Achilles' dreadful fleet appears! His bloody trains of Myrmidonians dire Shall wrap proud Ilion's domes in Grecian fire!
[From _The Kentucky Gazette_ (November 3, 1806)]
What deathless Artist's mimic hand Shall paint me here the Ocean bland, Shall give the waves such kindling glows As when immortal Venus rose? Who, in phrenzy's flight of mind Such touch and tinctures bright may find To match her form and golden hair And naked paint the heavenly fair? While every amorous rival billow Strives her buoyant breast to pillow? 'Tis done! behold the wavelets green Softly press the Paphian Queen, Around her heavenly bosom play, Kiss its warm blush and melt away. Her graceful neck of pearl behold, Her wavy curls of floating gold: But none but lips divine may tell What Graces on that bosom dwell! Such bloom a bed of lilies shows Illumin'd by the crimson'd rose. Rounding off with grace divine Like hills of snow her shoulders shine. While streaming thro' the waves she swims The silvery maze half veils her limbs, Else where's the eye that durst behold Such beauty stream'd on heavenly mold? Th' enamour'd Triton's glittering train Sporting round the liquid main Waving their gold and silver pinions, Bear her o'er their deep dominions, While infant Loves and young desires Dancing 'mid the choral choirs Clasp the beauteous Queen around And sail in triumph o'er the bright profound.