ADDRESS TO VENUS AND CUPID. 





Come, gentle Venus ! and assuage 

 A warring world, a bleeding age ; 

 For nature lives beneath thy ray, 

 The wintry tempests haste away, 

 A lucid calm invests the sea, 

 Thy native deep is full of thee ; 

 And flowering earth, where'er you fly, 

 Is all o'er spring, all sun the sky. 

 A genial spirit warms the breeze; 

 Unseen, amid the blooming trees, 

 The feather'd lovers tune their throat, 

 The desart growls a soften'd note, 

 Glad o'er the meads the cattle bound, 

 And Love and Harmony go round. 

 But chief into the human heart 

 You strike the dear delicious dart; 

 You teach us pleasing pangs to know, 

 To languish in luxurious woe, 

 To feel the generous passions rise, 

 Grow good by gazing, mild by sighs ; 

 Each happy moment to improve, 

 And fill the happy year with Love. 



Come, thou delight of heaven and earth ! 

 To whom all creatures owe their birth; 

 Oh come, sweet-smiling! tender, come! 

 And yet prevent man's wretched doom. 

 For long the furious God of War 

 Has crush'd him with his iron car, 

 Has rag'd along the smiling plains, 

 Has bathed them with his cruel stains, 

 Has fixed the youth in torpid sleep, 

 And made the widow'd virgin weep. 

 Let Mars now feel thy wonted charms ; 

 Oh take him to thy twining arms ! 

 And while thy bosom heaves to his, 

 While deep he prints the humid kiss, 

 Ah then! his stormy heart controul, 

 And sigh thyself into his soul. 



Thy son too, Cupid, we implore, 

 To leave the green Idalian shore. 

 Be he, sweet God! our only foe; 

 Long let him draw the twanging bow, 

 Transfix us with his golden darts, 

 Pour all his quiver on our hearts, 

 With gentler anguish make us sigh, 

 And teach us sweeter deaths to die. 



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