Yet unbeheld save by the sacred eye
Of faithful love. I go to guard thy haunt,
To keep from thy recess each vagrant foot,
And each licentious eye." With wild surprize,
As if to marble struck, devoid of sense, 1340
A stupid moment motionless she stood:
So stands the [1]statue that enchants the world,
So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,
The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.
Recovering, swift she flew to find those robes1345
Which blissful Eden knew not; and, array'd
In careless haste, th' alarming paper snatch'd.
But, when her Damon's well-known hand she saw,
Her terrors vanish'd, and a softer train
Of mixt emotions, hard to be describ'd,1350
Her sudden bosom seiz'd: shame void of guilt,
The charming blush of innocence, esteem
And admiration of her lover's flame,
By modesty exalted: even a sense
Of self-approving beauty stole across1355
Her busy thought. At length, a tender calm
Hush'd by degrees the tumult of her soul;
And on the spreading beech, that o'er the stream
Incumbent hung, she with the silvan pen
Of rural lovers this confession carv'd,1360
Which soon her Damon kiss'd with weeping joy:
"Dear Youth! sole judge of what these verses mean,
By fortune too much favour'd, but by love,
Alas! not favour'd less, be still as now
Discreet: the time may come you need not fly."1365
The sun has lost his rage: his downward orb
Shoots nothing now but animating warmth,
- ↑ The Venus of Medici.
