My fatal enemy is fair,
In body and in mind, I'll say,
And I have earn'd the woes I bear:
By rigour love maintains the sway.
VII.
With this opinion let me fall
A prey to unrelenting scorn:
No fun'ral pomp shall grace my pall,
No laurel my pale corse adorn.
O thou! whose cruelty and hate
The tortures of my breast proclaim,
Behold how willingly to fate
I offer this devoted frame.
If thou, when I am past all pain,
Should'st think my fall deserves a tear,
Let not one single drop distain
Those eyes so killing and so clear.
VIII.
No! rather let thy mirth display
The joys that in thy bosom flow;
Ah! need I bid that heart be gay
Which always triumph'd in my woe.
Come then, for ever barr'd of bliss,
Ye, who with ceaseless torment dwell,
And agonising, howl and hiss
In the profoundest shades of hell;
Come, Tantalus, with raging thirst,
Bring, Sisyphus, thy rolling stone,
Come, Tityus, with thy vulture curst,
Nor leave Ixion rack'd, alone:
IX.
The toiling sisters, too, shall join,
And my sad, solemn dirge repeat,
When to the grave my friends consign
These limbs denied a winding sheet;
