O! stay, lovely Nymph, while you hear who ’tis woos ye,
That the blithe god of wit, and of music, pursues ye,
Arrest thy fleet foot, that hastes wildly along,
Nor fly from the Lord of Verse, Physic, and Song!
At that dreadful word, Physic, she doubles her speed,
She springs through the thicket, she bounds o’er the mead,
For when fancy should paint a warm youth to have kiss’d her,
It presented, O, horrid! a bolus, and blister!
So, at length, to escape from the Doctor’s advances,
She commits her soft beauties to roots, and to branches.
Dull God!—had’st thou boasted, to vanquish her scorn,
Of thy locks hyacinthine, that burnish the morn,
Of the grace of those limbs, that can curb thy fierce horses,
And firm thro’ the Zodiac direct their rash courses;
Hadst thou urg’d her to turn, and to gaze on those eyes,
The blessing of earth, and the boast of the skies,
Talk’d less of thy knowledge, and more of thy charms,
Would the nymph have preferr’d a cold tree to thy arms?
No, no! ‘twas the thought, and the dread of a potion,
Which made her, thus oddly, renounce loco-motion.
Ah! ne’er, but for that, had the coy tree of fame
Stood, trembling and silent, by Arethuse’ stream;
And the Bards, who have gain’d by this amorous quarrel,
Might have worn the dull bays, but had miss’d the bright laurel.