OF TEMPER.
25
With keen delight her ravish'd eye survey'd
The mystic ribband on her mirror laid:
Bright shone the azure as Aurora's car,
And every spangle seem'd a living star.
With sportive grace the smiling damsel prest
The guardian cincture to her snowy breast,
More lovely far than Juno, when she strove
To look most lovely in the eyes of Jove;
And willing Venus lent her every power,
That sheds enchantment o'er the amorous hour:
For spells more potent on this band were thrown,
Than Venus boasted in her beauteous zone,
Her dazzling cestus could alone inspire
The sudden impulse of short-liv'd desire:
These finer threads with lasting charms are fraught,
Here lies the tender, but unchanging thought,
Silence that wins, where eloquence is vain,
And tones that harmonize the madd'ning brain,
Soft sighs that anger cannot hear and live,
And smiles that tell how truly they forgive;
The mystic ribband on her mirror laid:
Bright shone the azure as Aurora's car,
And every spangle seem'd a living star.
With sportive grace the smiling damsel prest
The guardian cincture to her snowy breast,
More lovely far than Juno, when she strove
To look most lovely in the eyes of Jove;
And willing Venus lent her every power,
That sheds enchantment o'er the amorous hour:
For spells more potent on this band were thrown,
Than Venus boasted in her beauteous zone,
Her dazzling cestus could alone inspire
The sudden impulse of short-liv'd desire:
These finer threads with lasting charms are fraught,
Here lies the tender, but unchanging thought,
Silence that wins, where eloquence is vain,
And tones that harmonize the madd'ning brain,
Soft sighs that anger cannot hear and live,
And smiles that tell how truly they forgive;
