With cruel art Corinna would destroyThe ripening fruit of our repeated joy.While on herself she practises her skill,She's like the mother, not the child, to kill.Me she would not acquaint with what she did,From me a thing, which I abhorr'd, she hid;Well might I now be angry, but I fear,Ill as she is, I might endanger her.By me, I must confess, she did conceive,The fact is so, or else I so believe;We've cause to think, what may so likely be,So is, and then the babe belongs to meOh Isis, who delight'st to haunt the fields,Where fruitful Nile his golden harvest yields,Where with seven mouths into the sea it falls,And hast thy walks around Canope's walls,Who Memphis visit'st, and the Pharian tower,Assist Corinna with thy friendly powers.Thee by thy silver Sistra I conjure,A life so precious by thy aid secure;