“Less for myself to care, through him I’ve grown. 
    And less my God to honour than I ought: 
    Through him my every thought
    On a frail beauty blindly have I thrown;
    In this my counsellor he stood alone,
    Still prompt with cruel aid so to provoke
    My young desire, that I
    Hoped respite from his harsh and heavy yoke. 
    But, ah! what boots—­though changing time sweep by,
    If from this changeless passion nought can save—­
    A genius proud and high? 
    Or what Heaven’s other envied gifts to have,
    If still I groan the slave
    Of the fierce despot whom I here accuse,
    Who turns e’en my sad life to his triumphant use?

    “’Twas he who made me desert countries seek,
    Wild tribes and nations dangerous, manners rude,
    My path with thorns he strew’d,
    And every error that betrays the weak. 
    Valley and mountain, marsh, and stream, and sea,
    On every side his snares were set for me. 
    In June December came,
    With present peril and sharp toil the same;
    Alone they left me never, neither he,
    Nor she, whom I so fled, my other foe: 
    Untimely in my tomb,
    If by some painful death not yet laid low. 
    My safety from such doom
    Heaven’s gracious pity, not this tyrant, deigns,
    Who feeds upon my grief, and profits in my pains!

    “No quiet hour, since first I own’d his reign,
    I’ve known, nor hope to know:  repose is fled
    From my unfriendly bed,
    Nor herb nor spells can bring it back again. 
    By fraud and force he gain’d and guards his power
    O’er every sense; soundeth from steeple near,
    By day, by night, the hour,
    I feel his hand in every stroke I hear. 
    Never did cankerworm fair tree devour,
    As he my heart, wherein he, gnawing, lurks,
    And, there, my ruin works. 
    Hence my past martyrdom and tears arise,
    My present speech, these sighs,
    Which tear and tire myself, and haply thee,
    —­Judge then between us both, thou knowest him and me!”

    With fierce reproach my adversary rose: 
    “Lady,” he spoke, “the rebel to a close
    Is heard at last, the truth
    Receive from me which he has shrunk to tell: 
    Big words to bandy, specious lies to sell,
    He plies right well the vile trade of his youth,
    Freed from whose shame, to share
    My easy pleasures, by my friendly care,
    From each false passion which had work’d him ill,
    Kept safe and pure, laments he, graceless, still
    The sweet life he has gain’d? 
    And, blindly, thus his fortune dares he blame,
    Who owes his very fame
    To me, his genius who sublimed, sustain’d,
    In the proud flight to which he, else, had dared not aim?