TO MYRTALIS

How bold this project, to defy

The artillery of a summer sky:

Round you, unmoved, the lightning plays,

While others perish in the blaze.

The fluid fire, in deafening peals,

Along the warm conductor steals;

And thence directed to the ground,

It glances off without a wound!

Thus guarded, while the heavens are bowed,

You, fearless, see the passing cloud;

And Jove's red bolts unheeded fall,

Near You, who slight, or scorn them all.

The beaver on your sacred scull,

( Secure as Salamander's wool )

Assists to keep from your rigg'd head

The flash that strikes us, wretches, dead.

But while the sulphur of the skies,

Disarmed, from this fair lady flies;

Or while the warm electric fire

In flashes darts along her spire,

She, not so merciful or kind,

( Or we, not guarded to her mind )

By Cupid's darts, procures our fall,

By Cupid's arrows kills us all.