Chapter VI

Wretched _OEnone’s_ inauspicious fate,
That she was born so soon, or her blest Muse so late!
Cou’d the poor Virgin have like her complain’d,
She soon her perjur’d Lover had regain’d,
In spight of all the fair Seducers tears,
In spight of all her Vows and Prayers;
Such tender accents through his Soul had ran,
As wou’d have pierc’d the hardest heart of Man.
At every Line the fugitive had swore
By all the Gods, by all the Powers divine,
My dear _OEnone_, I’ll be ever thine,
And ne’er behold the flattering Grecian more.
How does it please the learned _Roman’s_ Ghost
(The sweetest that th’ _Elysian_ Field can boast)
To see his noble thoughts so well exprest,
So tenderly in a rough Language drest;
Had she there liv’d, and he her _Genius_ known,
So soft, so charming, and so like his own,
One of his Works had unattempted been,
And _Ovid_ ne’er in mournfull Verse been seen;
Then the great _Cæsar_ to the _Scythian_ plain,
From _Rome’s_ gay Court had banish’d him in vain,
Her plenteous Muse had all his wants supplied,
And he had flourish’d in exalted pride:
No barbarous _Getans_ had deprav’d his tongue,
For he had onely list’ned to her Song,
Not as an exile, but proscrib’d by choice,
Pleas’d with her Form, and ravish’d with her voice.
His last and dearest part of Life,
Free from noise and glorious strife,
He there had spent within her softer Armes,
And soon forgot the Royal _Julia’s_ charmes.