Page:Poems, Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages.djvu/38

"Grant me to feed on beauty's rifled charms,
"And clasp a willing damsel in my arms;
"Her bosom fairer than a hill of snow,
"And gently bounding like a playful roe;
"Her lips more fragrant than the summer air
"And sweet as Scythian musk her hyacinthine hair;
"Let new delights each dancing hour employ,
"Sport follow sport, and joy succeed to joy."

The goddess grants the simple youth's request,
And mildly thus accosts her lovely guest:
"On that smooth mirror, full of magick lights
"Awhile, dear Maia, fix thy wandering sight"
She looks; and in th' enchanted crystal sees
A bower o'er-canopied with tufted trees:
The wanton stripling lies beneath the shade,
And by his side reclines a blooming maid;
O'er her fair limbs a silken mantle flows,
Through which her youthful beauty softly glows,
And part conceal'd and part disclos'd to fight,
Through the thin texture casts a ruddy light,
As the ripe clusters of the mantling vine
Beneath the verdant foliage faintly shine,