Ovid's Amorum Lib. 3. Eleg. 9. On the death of Tibullus. To Mr. William Lloyd

IF Heaven's Eye, the bright Aurora, shrouds
Her troubled Face under a Veil of Clouds,
And every Morning cursing her own Womb,
With fragrant Tears bedews her Memnon's Tomb:
If Thetis does her watry Fountains drain,
And with salt roaring Billows fill the Main;
Black Waves, as Mourners, for her Son provide,
And every day lament him with a Tide:
If Deities themselves submit to Fate,
Needs must Mortality sink with such a weight.
Come, mournful Elegy, with dishevel'd hair,
Sad as thy Stile, thy Face, and hopeless as Despair:
That as too true, thy Nature and thy Name,
So now thy Habit too may be the same.
Tibullus stampt with every beauteous Grace,
So faintly shadow'd in thy pensive Face,
Inspir'd ev'n from the Womb with thy own strain,
That Soul that ne're conceiv'd a thought in vain;
Thy Pride, thy Heir, thy Glory, and thy Fame,
Thy All is fewel for his fatal Flame.
Poor Cupid for his dear Tibullus mourns,
And carelesly his empty Quiver turns;
Puts out his Torch with streaming flouds of Tears,
And broken Arrows for a Trophy rears.
No more his Hymen, nor his Iô sings,
But sighs and sobs, and flags his wanton Wings:
With his own Dart scratches and tears his breast,
With the same Epidemick Rage possest
As Lovers are in Frenzy or Despair,
And digs for his Tibullus seated there.
So for Aeneas mourn'd the lovely Boy,
The Pride of future Rome, and Fame of Troy.
Nor could sweet Beauties Queen be troubled more
For her lov'd Youth, torn by a Savage Boar.
Lov'd Youth (said I) alas! compar'd with thee,
What would a thousand such Adoni's be?
A Poet's thought ('tis true) to be the Heir
Of Immortality, Heaven's peculiar Care,
Large Souls, a Colony of the Heavenly Line,
With something amiable and divine;
Nought comes amiss to sacrilegious Death,
That stops the Impious and the devout Breath.
And no Protection can secure from Fate,
That loves to prey upon the Good and Great.
What signified it, Orpheus to be born
Of Gods, by Furies into pieces torn?
With Melody to charm the Beasts of Prey,
When men themselves prove greater Bruits than they?
On barren Mountains does the God of Wit,
Mourning in melancholick horror, sit
Sighing a broken Tune to his mute Lyre,
And wishes for his Linus to expire.
Homer, that Tree of Knowledge, Greece's Pride,
(That Pegasus whom all the Poets ride)
In life hard Fate depriv'd him of the light,
And after shaded with eternal Night,
That unexhausted Spring, to whom we ow
All those small Streams of ours that scattering flow.
His glorious Works, and his adored Name,
Only survive as proof against the flame.
For Homer's Troy, that Phoenix cannot die,
So may Penelope's honest guile defie
The envious rage of Time, and reach Eternity.
And so shall Nemesis and Delia prove
As lasting in their Fame as in their Love:
Delia, that first his youthful Passion warm'd,
And Nemesis that last and longest charm'd.
In vain to lazy Gods we duly pray,
And to their Shrines our constant Homage pay.
In vain we deaf or helpless Stocks implore,
Or drowsie dreaming Deities adore,
That neither will have pity nor regard;
And righteous Souls can merit no Reward,
But turn like Bruits unto their native Dust.
What reason then have we to run on trust?
I'm tempted to believe no God, or Heaven's unjust.
Live well, and die well, there's an end of one;
And why should I the foolish hazard run
Of being vertuous, when I may as well
In flouds of Pleasures swim the way to Hell?
Death drags us from the Altar to the Grave,
Whilst careless Heaven looks on and will not save.
Death makes no Sanctuary of any place,
To whom, when, where, she comes, 'tis all a case:
The Laws of Fate, without exceptions, made
Irrevocable, needs must be obey'd.
Is Pluto blind? what then? the blind can hear:
And cannot Verses charm the Tyrant's Ear?
If so, would our Tibullus thus have died?
Tibullus Beauty's Prince, the Poet's Pride?
See now, of that Great Man the small Remains
A little narrow Urn in Dust contains.
How durst the flames (dear Friend) accost that breast
With such an hallow'd Vestal Fire possest?
What dare not they, that Vengeance can provoke,
And down with Gods and Temples at a stroke?
The Queen of Love with pity, and with dread,
At such Presumption turn'd away her head;
Nay some affirm, the Deity present there,
Could scarce from melting drops of Tears forbear.
Yet thanks to Heaven that thou diedst at home,
Corcyra could not be so sweet as Rome.
Thy Mother here clos'd thy departing Ey's,
And set that Sun that never more would rise.
In the cold hands of unrelenting death,
Gather'd the fragrant Reliques of thy breath,
And paid her last Devotion to thy Urn:
With her thy Sister did in Consort mourn;
For thee she did her lovely Tresses tear,
For thee in flouds of tears she wash'd her scatter'd hair
And when too forward on thy way to Bliss,
Delia and Nemesis secur'd a Kiss:
A Kiss (said I!) millions they laid in store,
Since they were never like to see thee more;
Some of thy parting breath they did receive,
And for each Sob a thousand Kisses give,
Kisses on which they might for ever live.
The Rivals both with emulous passion stay,
Until the Flames had ravisht thee away.
Thus Delia parting, for she left him first,
(The Wounds of Bosom-friends are always worst)
"'Twas I that season'd first thy untaught heart,
"And did the secret Rites of Love impart.
"Hadst thou been true, Albius, thou hadst not died;
"But thank thy own inconstancy and pride,
"One and the same Divorce did me and life divide.
" Vengeance has found thee out in my defence,
"And took the part of injur'd Innocence.
"Ah! that thou hadst but thy own interest known,
"And lov'd thy Delia, and lov'd her alone.
But Nemesis with Tears, (resolv'd to prove
She had best right and title to his Love)
Replies—
—"To me Grief only does belong,
"And if you shed a Tear, you do me wrong.
"Long since your Tyranny you did resign,
"Tibullus since was mine, and only mine.
"He grasp'd me in his Arms, and held me fast,
"Nor would he let me go, whilst breath would last.
"When Death's Convulsions Nature's Fabrick tore,
"His Organs loos'd, and he could speak no more,
"In broken Accents this I heard him breath,
"My Soul into thy arms, my Nemesis, I bequeath.
If there be ought of us survives the Flames,
Ought of us but our shadows and our names,
T' Elysium shall Tibullus be convey'd,
And there his Soul become the brightest Shade.
There shalt thou Calvus and Catullus find,
(About his Temples sacred Ivy twin'd:)
There in those Regions of Eternal Day,
If Fame belie him, (as I wish it may)
Shalt thou Tibullus with thy Gallus meet,
And your strange shades your former loves repeat.
Gallus, inspir'd with an ambitious Flame!
Gallus, too prodigal of Life and Fame!
But whilst his Shade wanders amongst the Just,
Thou Urn be careful of thy precious Trust,
Nor let his sacred Ashes touch the common Dust.
Lie light, thou Earth, indulgent to his rest,
Whilst his great Soul converses with the Blest.