While you, _Messala_, tempt th' _Ægæan_ Sea, I am prevented to attend your Way. But Oh! I wish you still may condescend To bear a kind Remembrance of your Friend. Oppress'd with Sickness, wearied out with Pains, _Phæacia_ me in unknown Lands detains, Sick, and a Stranger, in a foreign Land. Black Death, withdraw thy dire capacious Hand; Black Death, keep off, I pray, no Mother here Can gather up this Dust with pious Care: No Sister here with decent Grief can come } To please my Shade, and, off'ring rich Perfume, } With flowing Hair lament before my Tomb. } _Dart._
Hear _Ovid_ thus lamenting the Death of the same Poet, which follow'd from that Sickness. He speaks to Elegy:
_Ille tui Vates operis, tua fama, Tibullus, Ardet in extructo corpus inane rogo. Ecce Puer Veneris fert eversamque pharetram, Et fractos arcus, & sine luce facem. Aspice, demissis ut eat miserabilis alis, Pectoraque infesta tundat aperta manu._
Thy Poet, and Promulger of thy Fame, _Tibullus_ burns upon the Fun'ral Flame. With Torch extinct, and Quiver downward born, See _Cupid_, once sincere! attend his Urn. Now beats his Breast, his tender Hands now wrings, Broken his Shafts, and pendulous his Wings.
While the one dies thus, while the other so laments his Death, how justly are they both render'd immortal? They that thus write, and thus deserve Elegies, are such as least need them. Some _Descriptions_ in Elegy are not less affecting; as of the Elysian Fields, in the same Passage of _Tibullus_:
_Hic choreæ, cantusque vigent; passimque vagantes Dulce sonant tenui gutture carmen aves. Fert casiam non culta seges, totosque per agros Floret odoratis terra benigna rosis. Ac juvenum series, teneris immista puellis, Ludit, & assidue prælia miscet Amor._ There Songs perpetual charm the list'ning Ear, } Whilst all the feather'd Wand'rers of the Air, } To join the Sound, their warbling Throats prepare. } Cassia from ev'ry Hedge unbidden breathes, And to the Gales its fragrant Sweets bequeaths; The bounteous Earth its purple Product yields, And od'rous Roses paint the blushing Fields: There Trains of blooming Youths, and tender Maids, Sport on the Green, and wanton in the Shades; While busy Love attends them all the Way, Joins in the Conflict, and provokes the Fray. _Dart._