If Chloe o'er thy heart prevails,
She'll tear me with her desperate nails;
And with relentless hands destroy
The tender pledges of our joy.
Nor have I bred a spurious race;
They all were born from thy embrace.
Consider, Strephon, what you do;
For, should I die for love of you,
I'll haunt thy dreams, a bloodless ghost;
And all my kin (a numerous host,
Who down direct our lineage bring
From victors o'er the Memphian king;
Renown'd in sieges and campaigns,
Who never fled the bloody plains;
Who in tempestuous seas can sport,
And scorn the pleasures of a court;
From whom great Sylla found his doom,
Who scourg'd to death that scourge of Rome)
Shall on thee take a vengeance dire;
Thou, like Alcides, shalt expire,
When his envenom'd shirt he wore,
And skin and flesh in pieces tore.
Nor less that shirt, my rival's gift,
Cut from the piece that made her shift,
Shall in thy dearest blood be dy'd,
And make thee tear thy tainted hide.
IX.
DEPRIV'D of root, and branch, and rind,
Yet flowers I bear of every kind;
And such is my prolifick power,
