By turns to catch each other’s breath they strove,
And suck’d in all the balmy breeze of love.
Oft, as on different sides they stood, they cried,
‘Malicious wall, thus lovers to divide!
Suppose thou shouldst a while to us give place,
To lock and fasten in a close embrace;
But, if too much to grant so sweet a bliss,
Indulge at least the pleasure of a kiss.
We scorn ingratitude: to thee, we know,
This safe conveyance of our minds we owe.’
“Thus, they their vain petition did renew
Till night, and then they softly sigh’d adieu.
But first they strove to kiss, and that was all,
Their kisses died untasted on the wall.
Soon as the morn had o’er the stars prevail’d,
And, warn’d by Phoebus, flowers their dews exhaled,
The lovers to their well-known place return,
Alike they suffer and alike they mourn.
At last their parents they resolve to cheat
(If to deceive in love he call’d deceit),
To steal by night from home, and thence unknown
To seek the fields, and quit the unfaithful town.
But, to prevent their wand’ring in the dark,
They both agree to fix upon a mark,
A mark, that could not their designs expose,
The tomb of Ninus was the mark they chose.
There they might rest secure beneath the shade,
Which boughs, with snowy fruit encumber’d, made:
A wide-spread mulberry its rise had took
Just on the margin of a gurgling brook.
Impatient for the friendly dusk they stay,
And chide the slowness of departing day.
In western seas down sunk at last the light,
From western seas uprose the shades of night.
The loving Thisbe ev’n prevents the hour,
With cautious silence she unlocks the door,
And veils her face, and marching through the gloom,
Swiftly arrives at th’ assignation tomb.
For still the fearful sex can fearless prove,
Boldly they act, if spirited by love.
When, lo! a lioness rush’d o’er the plain,
Grimly besmear’d with blood of oxen slain:
And what to the dire sight new horrors brought,
To slake her thirst the neighb’ring spring she sought;
Which, by the moon, when trembling Thisbe spies,
Wing’d with her fear, swift as the wind, she flies,
And in a cave recovers from her fright,
But dropp’d her veil, confounded in her flight.
When sated with repeated draughts, again
The queen of beasts scour’d back along the plain:
She found the veil, and, mouthing it all o’er,
With bloody jaws the lifeless prey she tore.
“The youth, who could not cheat his guards so soon,
Late came, and noted by the glimmering moon
Some savage feet new printed on the ground,
His cheeks turn’d pale, his limbs no vigour found:
But when, advancing on, the veil he spied
Distain’d with blood, and ghastly torn, he cried,
‘One night shall death to two young lovers give,
But she deserved unnumber’d years to live!
’Tis I am guilty, I have thee betray’d,
Who came not early as my charming maid.
Whatever slew thee, I the cause remain,
I named and fix’d the place where thou wast slain.
Ye lions, from your neighb’ring dens repair,
Pity the wretch; this impious body tear!
But cowards thus for death can idly cry;
The brave still have it in their power to die.’
Then to the appointed tree he hastes away,
The veil first gather’d, though all rent it lay;
The veil all rent, yet still itself endears,
He kiss’d, and kissing, wash’d it with his tears.
‘Though rich,’ he cried, ‘with many a precious stain,
Still from my blood a deeper tincture gain.’
Then in his breast his shining sword he drown’d,
And fell supine extended on the ground.
As out again the blade he dying drew,
Out spun the blood, and streaming upwards flew.
So, if a conduit-pipe e’er burst you saw,
Swift spring the gushing waters through the flaw;
Then spouting in a bow they rise on high,
And a new fountain plays amid the sky.
The berries, stain’d with blood, began to show
A dark complexion, and forgot their snow,
While, fatten’d with the flowing gore, the root
Was doom’d for ever to a purple fruit.
“Meantime poor Thisbe fear’d, so long she stay’d,
Her lover might suspect a perjured maid.
Her fright scarce o’er, she strove the youth to find
With ardent eyes, which spoke an ardent mind.
Already in his arms, she hears him sigh
At her destruction, which was once so nigh.
The tomb, the tree, but not the fruit, she knew.
The fruit she doubted for its alter’d hue.
Still as she doubts, her eyes a body found,
Quivering in death, and gasping on the ground.
She started back, the red her cheeks forsook,
And every nerve with thrilling horrors shook.
So trembles the smooth surface of the seas,
If brush’d o’er gently with a rising breeze.
But when her view her bleeding love confess’d,
She shriek’d, she tore her hair, she beat her breast.
She raised the body, and embraced it round,
And bathed with tears unfeign’d the gaping wound;
Then her warm lips to the cold face applied,
‘And is it thus, ah! thus we meet?’ she cried,
‘My Pyramus! whence sprung thy cruel fate?
My Pyramus!—ah speak, ere ’tis too late.
I, thy own Thisbe, but one word implore,
One word thy Thisbe never ask’d before.’
At Thisbe’s name, awaked, he open’d wide
His dying eyes, with dying eyes he tried
On her to dwell, but closed them slow, and died.
“The fatal cause was now at last explored,
Her veil she knew, and saw his sheathless sword:
‘From thy own hand thy ruin thou hast found,’
She said, ‘but love first taught that hand to wound:
Ev’n I for thee as bold a hand can show,
And love, which shall as true direct the blow.
I will against the woman’s weakness strive,
And never thee, lamented youth, survive.
The world may say I caused, alas! thy death,
But saw thee breathless, and resign’d my breath.
Fate, though it conquers, shall no triumph gain,
Fate, that divides us, still divides in vain.
“ ‘Now, both our cruel parents, hear my prayer;
My prayer to offer for us both I dare,
Oh! see our ashes in one urn confined,
Whom love at first, and fate at last, has join’d.
The bliss you envied is not our request;
Lovers, when dead, may sure together rest.
Thou, tree, where now one lifeless lump is laid,
Ere long o’er two shall cast a friendly shade.
Still let our loves from thee be understood,
Still witness in thy purple fruit our blood.’
She spoke, and in her bosom plunged the sword,
All warm and reeking from its slaughter’d lord.
“The prayer which dying Thisbe had preferr’d,
Both gods and parents with compassion heard.
The whiteness of the
