Of Cupid, when he wields resistless arms;
    Or when, in dubious truce, he drops his dart,
    And gives short respite to the tortured heart. 
    The vital current’s ebb and flood I know,
    When shame or anger bids the features glow,
    Or terror pales the cheek; the deadly snake
    I know that nestles in the flowery brake,
    And, watchful, seems to sleep, and languor feigns,
    When health-inspiring vigour fills the veins. 
    I know what hope and fear assail the mind
    When I pursue my love, yet dread to find. 
    I know the strange and sympathetic tie,
    When, soul in soul transfused, a fond ally
    For ever seems another and the same,
    Or change with mutual love their mortal frame. 
    From transient smiles to long protracted woe
    The various turns and dark degrees I know;
    And hot and cold, and that unequall’d smart
    When souls survive, though sever’d from the heart. 
    I know, I cherish, and detect the cheat
    Of every hour; but still, with eager feet
    And fervent hope, pursue the flying fair,
    And still for promised rapture meet despair. 
    When absent, I consume in raging fire;
    But, in her presence check’d, the flames expire,
    Repress’d by sacred awe.  The boundless sway
    Of cruel Love I feel, that makes a prey
    Of all those energies that lift the soul
    To her congenial climes above the pole
    I know the various pangs that rend the heart;
    I know that noblest souls receive the dart
    Without defence, when Reason drops the shield
    And, recreant, to her foe resigns the field.—­
    I saw the archer in his airy flight,
    I saw him when he check’d his arrow’s flight: 
    And when it reach’d the mark, I watched the god,
    And saw him win his way by force or fraud,
    As best befits his ends.  His whirling throne
    Turns short at will, or runs directly on. 
    The rapid follies which his axle bear,
    Are short fallacious hope and certain fear;
    And many a promise given of Halcyon days,
    Whose faint and dubious gleam the heart betrays. 
    I know what secret flame the marrow fries,
    How in the veins a dormant fever lies;
    Till, fann’d to fury by contagious breath,
    It gains tremendous head, and ends in death. 
    I know too well what long and doubtful strife
    Forms the dire tissue of a lover’s life;
    The transient taste of sweet commix’d with gall,
    What changes dire the hapless crew befall. 
    Their strange fantastic habitudes I know,
    Their measured groans in lamentable flow;
    When rhyming-fits the faltering tongue employ,
    And love sick spasms the mournful Muse annoy;
    The smile that like the lightning fleets away,
    The sorrows that for half a life delay;
    Like drops of honey in a wormwood bowl,
    Drain’d to the dregs in bitterness of soul.