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. Was she not heavenly fair, and rich attir'd ?
  2. Was she not that which all my soul desir'd ?
  3. Yet were these arms around her idly spread,
  4. And with an useless load I press'd the bed.
  5. E'en to my wishes was the power denied,
  6. When with my wishes the kind nymph complied
  7. I lay without life's animated spring,
  8. A dull, enervate, worthless, lumpish thing.
  9. My neck she folded with a soft embrace,
  10. Now kissed my eyes, now wanton'd o'er my face,
  11. Now lov'd to dart her humid tongue to mine,
  12. Now would her pliant limbs around me twine,
  13. And sooth, by thousand ways, the sweet design.
  14. The moving blandishments of sound she tried,
  15. And, " My dear life, my soul, my all," she cried.
  16. In vain, alas ! the nerves are slacken'd still,
  17. And I prov'd only potent in my will;
  18. A poor inactive sign of man I made,
  19. And might as well for use have been a shade.
  20. If old I live, how shall I old prevail,