ALEXANDER POPE View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes * * * THE DUNCIAD FROM BOOK IV 210 What charms could faction, what ambition lull, The venal quiet, and entrance the dull; Till drowned was sense, and shame, and right, and wrong O sing, and hush the nations with thy song! 625 630 In vain, in vain the all-composing hour Resistless falls: the Muse obeys the power. She comes! she comes! the sable throne behold Of Night primeval and of Chaos old! Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. As one by one, at dread Medea's strain,1 635 The sickening stars fade off th' ethereal plain; As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppressed, Closed one by one to everlasting rest:2 Thus at her felt approach, and secret might, Art after art goes out, and all is night. See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, 640 Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head! Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. 1 Cf. the incantations of Medea, as told by Gower. 2 See the story in Gayley, pp. 92–94. The chief replied: "That post shall be my care, 560 Not that alone, but all the works of war. How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown'd, And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground, Attaint the lustre of my former name, Should Hector basely quit the field of fame? My early youth was bred to martial pains, My soul impels me to th' embattled plains: Let me be foremost to defend the throne, And guard my father's glories and my own. Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates, (How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!) 571, The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend, And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, Not Priam's hoary hairs defil'd with gore, Not all my brothers gasping on the shore, As thine, Andromache! Thy griefs I dread: I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led, In Argive1 looms our battles to design, 580 And woes of which so large a part was thine! To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring The weight of waters from Hyperia's spring! There, while you groan beneath the load of life, They cry, 'Behold the mighty Hector's wife!' Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see, Embitters all thy woes by naming me. 1 Grecian The thoughts of glory past and present shame, Thus having spoke, th' illustrious chief of Stretch'd his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy. 599 Thus to the gods preferr'd a father's pray'r: And all ye deathless pow'rs! protect my son! And say, 'This chief transcends his father's fame': While pleas'd, amidst the gen'ral shouts of Troy, His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy." He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms, Restor❜d the pleasing burthen to her arms; Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid, Hush'd to repose, and with a smile survey'd. The troubled pleasure soon chastis'd by fear, She mingled with the smile a tender tear. 621 The soften'd chief with kind compassion view'd, And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued: "Andromache! my soul's far better part, Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart? No hostile hand can antedate my doom, Friendship, like love, is but a name, A Hare, who, in a civil way, As forth she went at early dawn, You know my feet betray my flight; She next the stately Bull implored; 6 I 2 18 24 32 38 EDWARD YOUNG To leave you thus might seem unkind; The Goat remarked her pulse was high, BLACK-EYED SUSAN 48 52 62 - she sighed - he hung his head. Her lessening boat unwilling rows to land, "Adieu!" she cries, and waved her lily hand. EDWARD YOUNG (1683-1765) FROM THE COMPLAINT, OR NIGHT NIGHT I ΜΑΝ How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, 80 An heir of glory! a frail child of dust! And wondering at her own. How reason reels! O, what a miracle to man is man! Triumphantly distressed! What joy! what dread! Alternately transported and alarmed! What can preserve my life? or what destroy? An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; Legions of angels can't confine me there. PROCRASTINATION 371 By nature's law, what may be, may be now; Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn? Where is to-morrow? In another world. Of human ills the last extreme beware; Beware, Lorenzo,1 a slow sudden death. Year after year it steals, till all are fled, Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears The palm, "That all men are about to live, Forever on the brink of being born." 400 All pay themselves the compliment to think They one day shall not drivel: and their pride On this reversion takes up ready praise; At least, their own; their future selves applaud; How excellent that life they ne'er will lead. Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails; 2 That lodg'd in fate's to wisdom they consign. The thing they can't but purpose, they post pone. 'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool, And scarce in human wisdom to do more. 410 All promise is poor dilatory man, And that through every stage: when young, indeed, In full content we sometimes nobly rest, 420 1 probably the Duke of Wharton 2 folly's perquisite LADY WINCHILSEA (1661-1720) Whose stealing pace, and lengthen'd shade we A NOCTURNAL REVERIE In such a night, when every louder wind In such a night, when passing clouds give place, Or thinly vail the Heav'ns mysterious face; When in some river, overhung with green, The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen; ΙΟ When freshen'd grass now bears itself upright, And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite, Whence springs the woodbind and the bramble-rose, And where the sleepy cowslip shelter'd grows; Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes, Yet chequers still with red the dusky brakes; When scatter'd glow-worms, but in twilight fine, Show trivial beauties watch their hour to shine, Whilst Salisb'ry1 stands the test of every light In perfect charms and perfect virtue bright; 20 When odours which declin'd repelling day Thro' temp'rate air uninterrupted stray; When darken'd groves their softest shadows wear, And falling waters we distinctly hear; And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale; When the loos'd horse now, as his pasture leads, Comes slowly grazing thro' th' adjoining meads, 30 fear, Till torn up forage in his teeth we hear; When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food, And unmolested kine re-chew the cud; When curlews cry beneath the village-walls, And to her straggling brood the partridge calls; Their shortliv'd jubilee the creatures keep, Which but endures whilst tyrant-man does sleep; When a sedate content the spirit feels, own: In such a night let me abroad remain Shakes off her wonted firmness. 1 the Countess of Salisbury dark |