Amores

Ovid

Ovid. Ovid's Art of Love (in three Books), the Remedy of Love, the Art of Beauty, the Court of Love, the History of Love, and Amours. Dryden, John, et al., translator. New York: Calvin Blanchard, 1855.

  1. If how I do, she asks, do thou reply,
  2. For the dear night, and night's dear joys, I die.
  3. Tell her the letter will the rest explain,
  4. And does my soul, and all its hopes contain.
  5. But time, while I am speaking, flies: be sure
  6. To give the billet in a leisure hour:
  7. Don't be content with her imperfect view,
  8. But make her, when she has it, read it through.
  9. I charge thee, as she reads, observe her eyes,
  10. Catch, if thou canst, her gentle looks and sighs;
  11. As these are sure presages of my joy,
  12. So frowns and low'rs my flattering hopes destroy.
  13. Pray her, when she has read it, to indite
  14. An answer, and a long epistle write.
  15. I hate a billet, where at once I view
  16. A page all empty, but a line or two.
  17. Let her without a margin fill it up,
  18. And crowd it from the bottom to the top.
  19. But why should I her pretty fingers tire?
  20. A word's enough, and all that I desire.