1 Come, Mercury, by whose minstrel spell
2 Amphion raised the Theban stones,
3 Come, with your seven sweet strings, my shell,
4 Your “diverse tones,”
5 Nor vocal once nor pleasant, now
6 To rich man's board and temple dear:
7 Put forth your power, till Lyde bow
8 Her stubborn ear.
9 She, like a three-year colt unbroke,
10 Is frisking over the spacious plain,
11 Too shy to bear a lover's yoke,
12 A husband's rein.
13 The wood, the tiger, at your call
14 Have followed: you can rivers stay:
15 The monstrous guard of Pluto's hall
16 To you gave way,
17 Grim Cerberus, round whose Gorgon head
18 A hundred snakes are hissing death,
19 Whose triple jaws black venom shed,
20 And sickening breath.
21 Ixion too and Tityos smoothed
22 Their rugged brows: the urn stood dry
23 One hour, while Danaus' maids were soothed
24 With minstrelsy.
25 Let Lyde hear those maidens' guilt,
26 Their famous doom, the ceaseless drain
27 Of outpoured water, ever spilt,
28 And all the pain
29 Reserved for sinners, even when dead:
30 Those impious hands, (could crime do more?)
31 Those impious hands had hearts to shed⁠a
32 Their bridegrooms' gore!
33 One only, true to Hymen's flame,
34 Was traitress to her sire forsworn:
35 That splendid falsehood lights her name
36 Through times unborn.
37 “Wake!” to her youthful spouse she cried,
38 “Wake! or you yet may sleep too well:
39 Fly—from the father of your bride,
40 Her sisters fell:
41 They, as she-lions bullocks rend,
42 Tear each her victim: I, less hard
43 Than these, will slay you not, poor friend,
44 Nor hold in ward:
45 Me let my sire in fetters lay
46 For mercy to my husband shown:
47 Me let him ship far hence away,
48 To climes unknown.
49 Go; speed your flight over land and wave,
50 While Night and Venus shield you; go
51 Be blest: and on my tomb engrave
52 This tale of woe.”