Ecquid ago precibus? pectufne agrefte movetur ?
An riget? et Zephyri verba caduca ferunt?
Qui mea verba ferunt, vellem tua vela referrent.
Hoc te, fi faperes, lente, decebat opus.
Sive redis, puppique tuae votiva parantur

Munera; quid laceras pectora nostra mora ?
Solve ratem: Venus orta mari, mare praeftet eunti.
Aura dabit curfum; tu modo folve ratem.
Ipfe gubernabit refidens in puppe Cupido:
Ipfe dabit tenera vela legetque manu.
Sive juvat longe fugiffe Pelafgida Sappho ;

(Non tamen invenies, cur ego digna fuga.) 255 [O faltem miferae, Crudelis, epiftola dicat: Ut mihi Leucadiae fata petantur aquae.]

Gods! can no pray'rs, no fighs, no numbers move
One favage heart, or teach it how to love?
The winds my pray'rs, my fighs, my numbers bear,
The flying winds have loft them all in air!
245
Oh when, alas! fhall more aufpicious gales
To these fond eyes reftore thy welcome fails?
If you return—ah why these long delays?
Poor Sappho dies while careless Phaon stays.
O launch thy bark, nor fear the watʼry plain;
Venus for thee fhall fmooth her native main.
O launch thy bark, fecure of profp'rous gales;
Cupid for thee shall spread the fwelling fails.
If you will fly (yet ah! what cause can be,
Too cruel youth, that you should fly from me?) 255
If not from Phaon I must hope for ease,
Ah let me feek it from the raging feas:
To raging feas unpity'd I'll remove,
And either cease to live or cease to love!

250

ELOISA

то

ABELA R D.

ARGUMENT.

A

BELARD and Eloïfa flourished in the twelfth Century; they were two of the most diftinguished perfons of their age in learning and beauty, but for nothing more famous than for their unfortunate paffion. After a long courfe of calamities, they retired each to a feveral Convent, and confecrated the remainder of their days to religion. It was many years after this feparation, that a letter of Abelard's to a Friend, which contained the hiftory of his misfortune, fell into the hands of Eloïfa. This awakening all her tenderness, occafioned those celebrated letters (out of which the following is partly extracted) which give fo lively a picture of the struggles of grace and nature, virtue and paffion. P.