Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HORACE: SONG AT THE END OF ACT 4, by PIERRE CORNEILLE


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HORACE: SONG AT THE END OF ACT 4, by                    
First Line: The young, the fair, the chaste, the good
Last Line: To prove ungovern'd man the greatest beast.
Subject(s): Beauty


1

THE young, the fair, the chaste, the good,
The sweet Camilla, in a flood
Of her own crimson lies
A bloody, bloody sacrifice
To Death and man's inhuman cruelties.
Weep Virgins till your sorrow swells
In tears above the ivory cells
That guard those globes of light;
Drown, drown those beauties of your eyes,
Beauty should mourn, when beauty dies;
And make a general night,
To pay her innocence its funeral rite.

2

Death since his Empire first begun,
So foul a conquest never won,
Nor yet so fair a prize;
And had he had a heart, or eyes,
Her beauties would have charm'd his cruelties.
Even savage beasts will Beauty spare,
Chafed lions fawn upon the fair;
Nor dare offend the chaste.
But vicious man, that sees and knows
The mischief his wild fury does,
Humours his passions' haste,
To prove ungovern'd man the greatest beast.





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