EPISTLES in the Manner of OVID . MONIMIA to PHILOCLES . By the Same . SINCE language never can describe my pain , How can I hope to move when I complain ? But such is woman's frenzy in distress , We love to plead , tho' hopeless of redress . Perhaps , affecting ignorance , 'thou'lt say , From whence these lines ? whose message to convey ? Mock not my grief with that feign'd cold demand , Too well you know the hapless writer's hand : But if you force me to avow my shame , Behold it prefac'd with Monimia's name . Lost to the world , abandon'd and forlorn , Expos'd to infamy , reproach , and scorn , To mirth and comfort lost , and all for you , Yet lost , perhaps , to your remembrance too , How hard my lot ! what refuge can I try , Weary of life , and yet afraid to die ! Of hope , the wretch's last resort , bereft , By friends , by kindred , by my lover , left . Oh ! frail dependence of confiding fools ! On lovers oaths , or friendship's sacred rules , How weak in modern heats , too late I find , Monimia's faln , and Philocles unkind ! To these reflections , each slow wearing day , And each revolving night a constant prey , Think what I suffer , nor ungentle hear What madness dictates in my fond despair ; Grudge not this short relief , ( too fast it flies ) Nor chide that weakness I myself despise . One moment sure may be at least her due , Who sacrific'd her all of life for you . Without a frown this farewel then receive , For , 'tis the last my hapless love shall give ; Nor this I wou'd , if reason cou'd command , But what restriction reins a lover's hand ? Nor prudence , shame , nor pride , nor int'rest sways , The hand implicitly the heart obeys : Too well this maxim has my conduct shewn , Too well that conduct to the world is known . Oft have I writ , and often to the flame Condemn'd this after-witness of my shame ; Oft in my cooler recollected thought , Thy beauties , and my fondness half forgot , ( How short those intervals for reason's aid ! ) Thus to myself in anguish have I said . Thy vain remonstrance , foolish maid , give o'er , Who act the wrong , can ne'er that wrong deplore . Then sanguine hopes again delusive reign , I form'd thee melting , as I tell my pain . If not of rock thy flinty heart is made , Nor tygers nurs'd thee in the desart shade , Let me at least thy cold compassion prove , That slender sustenance of greedy love : Tho' no return my warmer wishes find , Be to the wretch , tho' not the mistress , kind ; Nor whilst I court my melancholy state , Forget 'twas love , and thee , that wrought my fate . Without restraint habituate to range , The paths of pleasure ; can I bear this change ? Doom'd from the world unwilling to retire , In bloom of life , and warm with young desire , In lieu of roofs with regal splendor gay , Condemn'd in distant wilds to drag the day ; Where beasts of prey maintain their savage court , Or human brutes ( the worst of brutes ) resort . Yes , yes , the change I cou'd unsighing see , For none I mourn , but what I find in thee , There center all my woes , thy heart estrang'd , I weep my lover , not my fortune , chang'd ; Bless'd with thy presence , I could all forget , Nor gilded palaces in huts regret , But exil'd thence , superfluous is the rest , Each place the same , my hell is in my breast ; To pleasure dead , and living but to pain , My only sense to suffer , and complain . As all my wrongs distressful I repeat , Say , can thy pulse with equal cadence beat ? Can'st thou know peace ? is conscience mute within ? That upright delegate for secret sin ; Is nature so extinguish'd in thy heart , That not one spark remains to take my part ? Not one repentant throb , one grateful sigh ? Thy breast unruffled , and unwet thy eye ? Thou cool betrayer , temperate in ill ! Thou nor remorse , nor thought humane can'st feel : Nature has form'd thee of the rougher kind , And education more debas'd thy mind , Born in an age when guilt and fraud prevail , When Justice sleeps , and Int'rest holds the scale ; Thy loose companions a licentious crew , Most to each other , all to us untrue , Whom chance , or habit mix , but rarely choice , Nor leagu'd in friendship , but in social vice , Who indigent of honour , or of shame , Glory in crimes which others blush to name ; By right or wrong disdaining to be mov'd , Unprincipled , unloving , and unlov'd . The fair who trusts their prostituted vows , If not their falshood , still their boasts expose ; Nor knows the wisest to elude the harm , Ev'n she whose prudence shuns the tinsel charm They know to slander , though they fail to warm : They make her languish in fictitious flame , Affix some specious slander on her name , And baffled by her virtue , triumph o'er her fame . These are the leaders of thy blinded youth , These vile seducers laugh'd thee out of truth ; Whose scurril jests all solemn ties profane , Or Friendship's band , or Hymen's sacred chain ; Morality as weakness they upbraid , Nor e'en revere Religion's hallow'd head ; Alike they spurn divine and human laws , And treat the honest like the christian cause . Curse on that tongue whose vile pernicious art Delights the ear but to corrupt the heart , That takes advantage of the chearful hour , When weaken'd Virtue bends to Nature's pow'r , And would the goodness of the soul efface , To substitute dishonour in her place . With such you lose the day in false delights , In lewd debauch you revel out the nights , ( O fatal commerce to Monimia's peace ! ) Their arguments convince because they please ; Whilst sophistry for reason they admit , And wander dazzled by the glare of wit , Wit that on ill a specious lustre throws , And in false colours ev'ry object shows , That gilds the wrong , depreciating the right , And hurts the judgment , while it feasts the sight ; So in the prism to the deluded eye Each pictur'd trifle takes a rainbow dye , With borrow'd charms the shining prospect glows , And truth revers'd the faithless mirror shows , Inverted scenes in bright confusion lie , The lawns impending o'er the nether sky ; No just , no real images we meet , But all the gaudy vision is deceit . Oft I revolve in this distracted mind Each word , each look , that spoke my charmer kind ; But oh ! how dear their memory I pay ! What pleasures past can present cares allay ? Of all I love for ever dispossess'd : Ah ! what avails to think I once was bless'd ? Hard disposition of unequal fate ! Mix'd are our joys , and transient are their date ; Nor can reflection bring them back again , Yet brings an after-sting to ev'ry pain . Thy fatal letters , oh immoral youth , Those perjur'd pledges of fictitious truth , Dear as they were no second joy afford , My cred'lous heart once leap'd at ev'ry word , My glowing bosom throbb'd with thick-heav'd sighs , And floods of rapture gush'd into my eyes : When now repeated ( for thy theft was vain , Each treasur'd syllable my thoughts retain ) Far other passions rule , and diff'rent care , My joys and grief , my transports and despair . Why dost thou mock the ties of constant love ? But half its joys the faithless ever prove , They only taste the pleasures they receive , When sure the noblest is in those we give . Acceptance is the heav'n which mortals know , But 'tis the bliss of angels to bestow . Oh ! emulate , my love , that task divine , Be thou that angel , and that heav'n be mine . Yes , yet relent , yet intercept my fate : Alas ! I rave , and sue for new deceit . As soon the dead shall from the grave return , As love extinguish'd with new ardor burn . Oh ! that I dar'd to act a Roman part , And stab thy image in this faithful heart , Where riveted for life secure you reign , A cruel inmate , author of my pain : But coward-like irresolute I wait Time's tardy aid , nor dare to rush on fate ; Perhaps may linger on life's latest stage , Survey thy cruelties , and fall by age : No — grief shall swell my sails , and speed me o'er ( Despair my pilot ) to that quiet shore Where I can trust , and thou betray no more . Might I but once again behold thy charms , Might I but breathe my last in those dear arms , On that lov'd face but fix my closing eye , Permitted where I might not live to die , My soften'd fate I wou'd accuse no more ; But fate has no such happiness in store . 'Tis past , 'tis done — what gleam of hope behind , When I can ne'er be false , nor thou be kind ? Why then this care ? — 'tis weak — 'tis vain — farewel — At that last word what agonies I feel ! I faint — I die — remember I was true — 'Tis all I ask — eternally — adieu ! —