92 His feeling breast with purer flames shall glow ; And leaving pomp, and state, and cares behind, Shall own the world has little to bestow Where two fond hearts in equal love are joined. OVID TO HIS WIFE. IMITATED FROM DIFFERENT PARTS OF HIS TRISTIA. Jam mea cygneas imitantur tempora plumas, Inficit et nigras alba senecta comas. TRIST. Lib. iv. Eleg. 8. My aged head now stoops its honours low, Averse to change, and chilled with causeless fears. The season now invites me to retire To the dear lares of my household fire; To homely scenes of calm domestic peace, A poet's leisure, and an old man's ease; To wear the remnant of uncertain life In the fond bosom of a faithful wife; In safe repose my last few hours to spend, Nor fearful nor impatient of their end. And dreams his morning triumphs o'er again :- His joints unstrung, and feeds his household fires; And sees his stormy day serenely close. Not such my lot! Severer fates decree My shattered bark must plough an unknown sea. Forced from my native seats and sacred home, Friendless, alone, through Scythian wilds to roam ; With trembling knees o'er unknown hills I go, Stiff with blue ice and heaped with drifted snow. Pale suns there strike their feeble rays in vain, Which faintly glance against the marble plain: Red Ister there, which madly lashed the shore, His idle urn sealed up, forgets to roar: Stern Winter in eternal triumph reigns, Shuts up the bounteous year and starves the plains. My failing eyes the weary waste explore, The savage mountains and the dreary shore, And vainly look for scenes of old delight; No loved familiar objects meet my sight; No long-remembered streams nor conscious bowers I fondly hoped, content with learned ease, In every scene some favourite spot to trace, And meet in all some kind domestic face; To stretch my limbs upon my native soil, With long vacation from unquiet toil; Resign my breath where first that breath I drew, And sink into the spot from whence I grew. But if my feeble age is doomed to try Yet storm and tempest are of ills the least Society than solitude is worse, And man to man is still the greatest curse. |