Elegy III: To His Mistress. By Charles Hopkins.
Be just, dear maid, an equal passion prove,Or show me cause why I should ever love.
I do not at your cold disdain repine,
Nor ask your love, do you but suffer mine.
I dare not aim at more exalted bliss,
And Venus will bestow her vot'ry this.
Take hin, who will for endless ages serve:
Take him whose faithful flame will never swerve
Though no illustrious names my race adorn;
Who am but of equestrian order born;
Though a few ploughs serve my paternal fields,
Nor my small table many dishes yields;
Yet Bacchus, Phoebus, and the tuneful nine,
Are all my friends, and to my side incline,
And love's great god, at last, will make me thine.
Heav'n knows, dear maid, I love no other fair;
In thee lives all my love, my heav'n lies there.
Oh! may I by indulgent Fate's decree,
With thee lead all my life, and die with thee.
Thy beauties yield me my transporting theme;
And while I celebrate thy charming name,
My verse shall be as sacred as my flame.
Jove's sev'ral rapes, his injur'd Io's wrongs,
Are made immortal in his poet's songs.
Verse still reveals where Leda's flames began,
Rais'd by the secret godhead in the swan,
The story of the rape Europa bore,
Shall last while winds shall rage, or waters roar.
Your name shall live like theirs, while verse endures,
And mine be ever writ, and read with yours.
