FABLE IX.
The LILY and NARCISSUS.
I.
“AH! hapless discontented flow’r,
“That yellow leaves adorn;
“Who once in life’s gay vernal pride
“The brightest nymphs could’st scorn.
II.
“Hard was thy lot, and short thy date,
“By form too fair undone;
“Thou met’st, alas! a timeless doom,
“Ere half thy course was run.
III.
“Unhappy, self-admiring youth,
“A lesson thou shalt prove;
“T’ avoid vain pride, that idle toy,
“And shun prepost’rous love.
IV.
“Fair when a boy, now chang’d, no more
“Those beauties can’st thou boast;
“But ever sadly may’st repent
“In vain those beauties lost.
V.
“View yonder Lily’s snowy pride,
“Sprung from a seed divine;
“Then own how much her beauty bright,
“Fond flow’r, out-rivals thine!”
VI.
With modest grace the Lily bow’d
The honours of her head;
Then, with a sweet and modest grace,
She thus instructive said:
VII.
“Well may they droop, to whom their fate,
“With form divinely fair,
“No other, better boon has giv’n
“To make that beauty dear.
VIII.
“For not this glossy white I bear,
“Delight of human eyes;
“Nor this so graceful form admir’d,
“Are what I wish to prize.
IX.
“From heav’nly strain[16]
I first arose,
“Emblem of chaste desires;
“And still that chastity retain,
“And check unhallow’d fires.
X.
“No empty self-admirer, I
“Would Folly’s trophies raise;
“Such virtue then let all applaud,
“Not empty beauty praise.”
XI.
She said; and strait the moral found
Deep entrance in my breast;
Beauty, if not with Virtue join’d,
Is but an idle jest.