Metin
Into your hands no am'rous poet take,Soft poems, elegies of love, and pleasant songs, revive amorous fancies. and should be avoided. Ovid names the very poets whom he advised the lovers to read in his Art of Love, as Callimachus, Philetas, Tibullus, Propertius, and Gallus; and for the same season that they were good then, are bad now. The moderns may be allowed to read them, as there are several historical events to be met with in them, but not to learn their sentiments.
Whose Syren muses draw the list'ning throng,
845
And charm them into ruin by their song.
Callimachus first from your sight remove.
Banish Philetas next; they're friends to love.
How oft have Sappho's odes set me one fire!
Who can contain, that hears Anacreon's lyre?
850
Who reads Tibullus must his passion feel;
Propertius can dissolve a heart of steel:
Nor Gallus fails the coldest breast to warm;
And e'en my muse has found the art to charm.
But if Apollo, who conducts my song,
855
Secure me in this point from guessing wrong,
The pain with which most sensibly you're griev'd,
Is on th' account of jealousy conceiv'd.
No fear of rivals must your heart torment:
For true, or false, yet for your own content,
860
At least persuade yourself that you have none,
And that the harmless creature sleeps alone.
Orestes ne'er could find his nymph had charms,
