Then gracious Somnus, with his nightly spell,
(Beneath whose mystic beams great monarchs bend,)
Proclaim’d—the festival was at an end:
The good old god, who ever-timely wise,
Trod on the tender covering of their eyes;
And bade them pay due homage unto night:
But there was one, (the god dimm’d not his sight,)
Whose breast was blazing with that nuptial flame,
Which strives to ancestralize a family name;
His sweet companion, buckling for the deed,
Encourag’d him t’advance: her love obey’d:
Fair Bapta,[253] charitably, drew her veil,
And bade the loving warriors doff their mail,—
’Twas done!—they waver’d, for the shock was great,
The conflict ceas’d. Concordia,[254] reign’d in state.
* * * * *
And when another summer-time had flown,
(For God had bless’d the mould wherein ’twas sown,)
The gladsome father, named his own, his own....
* * * * *
“Virtue rewarded:”—be ye all discreet;
For love, without discretion, courts defeat.
[253] Bapta, the goddess of shame.
[254] Concordia, the goddess of peace.
[Illustration]