Classic Poem

If any pains incurred of justice done
For perjury, Barine, told a tale,
If a black tooth your beauty marred, or one
Unsightly nail,

I'd trust you; but you bind your faithless head
With vows, and straight more radiantly fair
You issue forth among our youths to spread
Wide-felt despair.

You mock with broken oaths your mother's tomb,
The silent signs of night and all the sky,
You mock the gods exempt from mortal doom,
And gain thereby.

With laughter Venus, I protest, and e'en
The guileless-Nymphs look on, stern Cupid too,
Who keeps his fiery arrows ground so keen
For all but you.

For you our boys grow up, to swell your train!
While they who long have borne your wicked will
Belying many a threat of flight remain
To serve you still.

Mothers of sons in fear of you abide,
And niggard sires; no bride but dreads her fate
That your seductive charms will lure aside
Her new-wed mate.