It is mine, therefore, to observe the flames that glow within my breast, and follow you, my charming fair, who better deserve a place among the stars. You merit indeed to be translated into heaven: yet leave not these earthly abodes; or teach me in what manner I also may be exalted among the Gods. You are still here, and yet how seldom in the embraces of your wretched lover! The seas and my mind are in equal disorder. What avails it that I am not separated from you by a vast ocean? Does this narrow streight less oppose our coming together? I doubt whether it would not be better, that, divided from you by earth's whole extent, I might be equally removed from hope and
my mistress. The nearer you are, the more violent is the flame that rages within me; and though the object of my hope is often absent, yet hope itself never ceases to haunt me. I almost touch with my hand (so near our abodes) the darling of my soul. But alas! this almost often fills my eyes with sorrowing tears. Wherein loes this differ from catching at the flying apples, or following after the deceitful flood? Shall I then never hold you in my arms, but when the unstable waves permit? Must storms ever be a bar to my happiness? and while nothing is more uncertain than the winds and waves, must my happiness ever depend upon the winds and waves? It is now too the warm season: what am I to expect when the Pleiades, Arctophylax, and the Goat, deform
the sea? Either I mistake in judging of the rash attempts of Love, or even then, thoughtless, he will urge me to plunge into the waves. Nor imagine that I promise this because the time is distant; you shall soon have a proof of the reality of my design. Let the sea continue to rage for a few nights longer: I will again attempt to force my way through the opposing billows. Either, happily daring, I shall safely reach your beloved shore, or a speedy death will put an end to all my anxieties. Yet I could wish to be cast where my Hero lives, and that my shipwrecked limbs might be borne into your ports. You will mourn my fate, and honor my breathless body with a last embrace; then sighing, say, "Alas! I have been the cause of his death." Perhaps you will be offended with this threatening omen of a sudden fate, or alarmed by the suspicions which my letter betrays. But I desist: dispel therefore your fears, and join your prayers with mine, that the rage of the sea may abate. It is requisite that it should be
calm for a time, till I convey myself to yonder shore: when once I have reached the coast of my Hero, let the storm return in all its violence. There, is the fittest asylum for my shattered bark; there, my ship may with the greatest security ride at anchor. Let the North-wind shut me up there, where delay is sweet. Then, if ever, I shall be averse to swimming, and cautiously avoid danger. No reproaches will be thrown out against the unrelenting waves; no complaints made, that the sea forbids a return to my native shore. Let me be alike detained by the winds and your folding arms: let both these causes conspire to prolong the sweet delay. When the storm abates, my arms shall cut the liquid way: only remember always to place in view the guiding torch. Till then, let this epistle supply my place; and heaven grant that I may follow it without delay.
