230 This breast which once, in vain! you lik'd so well; (Wretch that I am, to call that Phaon mine!) At quanto melius jungi mea pectora tecum, Hæc sunt illa, Phaon, quæ tu laudare solebas; Nunc vellem facunda forent: dolor artibus obstat; Non mihi respondent veteres in carmina vires: Lesbides, infamem quæ me fecistis amatæ ; Desinite ad citharas turba venire meas: 236 224 230 Abstulit omne Phaon, quod vobis ante placebat. 236 (Me miseram! dixi quam modo pene, meus!) Absent from thee, the poet's flame expires; But ah! how fiercely burn the lover's fires! Gods! can no pray'rs, no sighs, no numbers move One savage heart, or teach it how to love? 245 The winds my pray'rs, my sighs, my numbers bear, 250 Too cruel youth, that you should fly from me?) 255 Efficite ut redeat: vates quoque vestra redibit. 240 Ecquid ago precibus? pectusne agreste movetur? An riget? et zephyri verba caduca ferunt? Qui mea verba ferunt, vellem tua vela referrent. 245 Hoc te, si saperes, lente, decebat opus. Sive redis, puppique tuæ votiva parantur Solve ratem: Venus orta mari, mare præstet eunti. Ipse gubernabit residens in puppe Cupido; 258 If not from Phaon I must hope for ease, Sive juvat longe fugisse Pelasgida Sappho; Ut mihi Leucadia fata petantur aquæ.] 255 3 ELOISA TO ABELARD. The Argument. Abelard and Eloisa flourished in the twelfth century; they were two of the most distinguished persons of their age in learning and beauty; but for nothing inore famous than for their unfortunate passion. After a long course of calamities, they retired each to a several convent, and consecrated the remainder of their days to religion. It was many years after this separation that a letter of Abelard's to a friend, which contained the history of his misfortune, fell into the hands of Eloisa. This awakening all her tenderness, occasioned those celebrated Letters, (out of which the following is partly extracted) which give so lively a picture of the struggles of Grace and Nature, Virtue, and Passion. In these deep solitudes and awful cells, Where heav'nly-pensive Contemplation dwells, What means this tumult in a vestal's veins? Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat? Dear fatal name! rest ever unreveal'd, Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeys. [P.) Relentless walls! whose darksome round contains Repentant sighs, and voluntary pains; 15 Volume I. P Ye tugged Rocks! which holy knees have worn; All is not heav'n's while Abelard has part, 20 25 That well-known name awakens all my woes. 30 Still breath'd in sighs, still usher'd with a tear. I tremble too, where'er my own I find, Some dire misfortune follows close behind. Line after line my gushing eyes o'erflow, 35 Led through a sad variety of woe: Now warm in love, now with'ring in my bloom, Lost in a convent's solitary gloom! There stern Religion quench'd th' unwilling flame; There dy'd the best of passions, love and faine. 40 Yet write, oh write me all, that I may join Griefs to thy griefs, and echo sighs to thine. Nor foes nor fortune take this pow'r away; And is my Abelard less kind than they? Tears still are mine, and those I need not spare, 45 Love but demands what else were shed in pray'r; No happier task these faded eyes pursue; To read and weep is all they now can do. |