On Reading the Love Elegies, 1742
Hither your Wreaths, ye drooping Muses, bring
The short-lived Rose, that blooms but to decay;
Love's fragrant Myrtles, that in Paphos spring,
And deathless Poetry's immortal Bay.
And Oh thou gentlest Shade accept the Verse,
Mean tho' it be, and artlessly sincere,
That pensive thus attends thy silent Hearse,
And steals, in secret Shades, the pious Tear.
What Heart, by Heav'n with gen'rous Softness blest,
But in thy Lines its native Language reads?
Where hapless Love, in Classic Plainness drest,
The short-lived Rose, that blooms but to decay;
Love's fragrant Myrtles, that in Paphos spring,
And deathless Poetry's immortal Bay.
And Oh thou gentlest Shade accept the Verse,
Mean tho' it be, and artlessly sincere,
That pensive thus attends thy silent Hearse,
And steals, in secret Shades, the pious Tear.
What Heart, by Heav'n with gen'rous Softness blest,
But in thy Lines its native Language reads?
Where hapless Love, in Classic Plainness drest,
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