Epilogue
Here check we our career:
Long books I greatly fear.
I would not quite exhaust my stuff;
The flower of subjects is enough.
To me, the time is come, it seems,
To draw my breath for other themes.
Love, tyrant of my life, commands
That other work be on my hands.
I dare not disobey.
Once more shall Psyche be my lay.
I’m call’d by Damon to portray
Her sorrows and her joys.
I yield: perhaps, while she employs,
My muse will catch a richer glow;
And well if this my labour’d strain
Shall be the last and only pain
Her spouse27 shall cause me here below.
[27] Her spouse.—Cupid, the spouse of Psyche. The “other work on my hands” mentioned in this Epilogue (the end of the poet’s first collection of Fables) was no doubt the writing of his “Psyche,” which was addressed to his patron the Duchess de Bouillon, and published in 1659, the year following the publication of the first six Books of the Fables. See also Translator’s Preface.