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. Alas! poor Poll, my Indian talker, dies!
  2. Go, birds, and celebrate his obsequies;
  3. Go, birds, and beat your breasts, your faces tear,
  4. And pluck your gaudy plumes instead of hair;
  5. Let doleful tunes the frighted forest wound,
  6. And your sad notes supply the trumpet's sound.
  7. Why, Philomel, dost mourn the Thracian rage?
  8. It is enough, thy grief at last assuage;
  9. His crimson faults are now grown white with age.
  10. Now mourn this bird; the cause of all thy woe
  11. Was great, 'tis true, but it was long ago.
  12. Mourn, all ye wing'd inhabitants of air,
  13. But you, my turtle, take the greatest share;
  14. You too liv'd constant friends and free from strife
  15. Your kindness was entire, and long as life:
  16. What Pylades to his Orestes vow'd.
  17. To thee, poor Poll, thy friendly turtle show'd,
  18. And kept his love as long as fate allow'd.
  19. But, ah! what did thy faith, thy plumes, and tail,
  20. And what thy pretty speaking art, avail?