With her, at his defire, came Palamon;
Then on his pillow rais'd, he thus begun.
No language can express the smallest part
Of what I feel, and fuffer in my heart,
For you, whom beft I love and value most;
But to your fervice I bequeath my ghost;
Which from this mortal body when unty'd,
Unseen, unheard, fhall hover at your fide;
Nor fright you waking, nor your fleep offend,
But wait officious, and your steps attend :
How I have lov'd, excufe my faltering tongue,
My spirits feeble, and my pains are firong:
This I may fay, I only grieve to die
Because I lose my charming Emily:
To die, when Heaven had put you in my power,
Fate could not chufe a more malicious hour!
What greater curfe could envious fortune give,
Than just to die, when I began to live!
Vain men, how vanishing a blifs we crave,
Now warm in love, now withering in the grave!
Never, O never more to fee the fun!
Still dark, in a damp vault, and still alone!
This fate is common; but I lofe my breath
Near blifs, and yet not blefs'd before my death.
Farewel; but take me dying in your arms,
'Tis all I can enjoy of all your charms:
This hand I cannot but in death refign;
Ah! could I live! but while I live 'tis mine.
I feel my end approach, and thus embrac'd,
Am pleas'd to die; but hear me speak my last,
Ah! my fweet foe, for you, and you alone,
I broke my faith with injur'd Palamon.
But love the fenfe of right and wrong confounds,
Strong love and proud ambition have no bounds.
And much I doubt, fhould heaven my life prolong,
I should return to justify my wrong:
For, while my former flames remain within,
Repentance is but want of power to fin.
With mortal hatred I pursued his life,
Nor he, nor you, were guilty of the strife :
Nor I, but as I lov'd; yet all combin`d,
Your beauty, and my impotence of mind;
And his concurrent flame, that blew my fire;
For ftill our kindred fouls had one defire.
He had a moment's right in point of time;
Had I feen first, then his had been the crime.
Fate made it mine, and juftify'd his right;
Nor holds this earth a more deferving knight,
For virtue, valour, and for noble blood,
Truth, honour, all that is compriz'd in good;
So help me Heaven, in all the world is none
So worthy to be lov'd as Palamon.
He loves you too, with fuch an holy fire,
As will not, cannot, but with life expire:
Our vow'd affections both have often try'd,
Nor any love but yours could ours divide.
Then, by my love's inviolable band,
By my long suffering, and my short command,
If e'er you plight your vows when I am gone,
Have pity on the faithful Palamon.
This was his laft; for death came on amain,
And exercis'd below his iron reign;
Then upward to the feat of life he
Sense fled before him, what he touch'd he froze :
Yet could he not his clofing eyes withdraw,
Though lefs and lefs of Emily he faw;
So, fpeechlefs, for a little space he lay;
Then grafp'd the hand he held, and figh'd his foul away.
But whither went his foul, let fuch relate
Who fearch the fecrets of the future ftate:
Divines can fay but what themselves believe;
Strong proofs they have, but not demonftrative:
For, were all plain, then all fides must agree,
And faith itself be loft in certainty.
To live uprightly then is fure the best,
To fave ourselves, and not to damn the reft.
The foul of Arcite went where heathens go,
Who better live than we, though less they know.
In Palamon a manly grief appears;
Silent, he wept, afham'd to fhew his tears
Emilia fhriek'd but once, and then, opprefs'd
With forrow, funk upon her lover's breast:
Till Thefeus in his arms convey'd with care,
Far from fo fad a fight, the fwooning fair.
'Twere lofs of time her forrow to relate;
Ill bears the fex a youthful lover's fate,
When juft approaching to the nuptial state.
But, like a low-hung cloud, it rains fo faft,
That all at once it falls, and cannot last.
The face of things is chang'd, and Athens now,
That laugh'd fo late, becomes the scene of woe :
Matrons and maids, both sexes, every state,
With tears lament the knight's untimely fate.
Nor greater grief in falling Troy was seen
For Hector's death; but Hector was not then.
Old men with dust deform'd their hoary hair,
The women beat their breasts, their cheeks they tare.
Why would'st thou go, with one confent they cry,
When thou had'ft gold enough, and Emily.
Thefeus himself, who should have cheer'd the grief Of others, wanted now the fame relief.
Old Egeus only could revive his fon,
Who various changes of the world had known:
And strange viciffitudes of human fate,
Still altering, never in a steady state;
Good after ill, and after pain delight;
Alternate like the scenes of day and night:
Since every man who lives is born to die,
And none can boast sincere felicity,
With equal mind what happens let us bear,
Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.
Like pilgrims to th' appointed place we tend ;
The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.
Ev'n kings but play; and when their part is done,
Some other, worse or better, mount the throne.
With words like these the crowd was fatisfy'd,
And fo they would have been, had Thefeus dy'd.
VOL. III
But he, their king, was labouring in his mind,
A fitting place for funeral pomps to find,
Which were in honour of the dead design'd.
And, after long debate, at last he found
(As love itself had mark'd the spot of ground)
That grove for ever green, that conscious land,
Where he with Palamon fought hand to hand :
That where he fed his amorous defires
With foft complaints, and felt his hottest fires,
There other flames might wafte his earthly part,
And burn his limbs, where love had burn'd his heart.
This once refolv'd, the peasants were enjoin'd
Sere-wood, and firs, and dodder'd oaks to find.
With founding axes to the grove they go,
Fell, fplit, and lay the fuel on a row,
Vulcanian food: a bier is next prepar'd,
On which the lifeless body should be rear'd,
Cover'd with cloth of gold, on which was laid
The corpfe of Arcite, in like robes array'd.
White gloves were on his hands, and on his head
A wreath of laurel, mix'd with myrtle spread.
A fword keen-edg'd within his right he held,
The warlike emblem of the conquer'd field:
Bare was his manly visage on the bier :
Menac'd his countenance; ev'n in death fevere.
Then to the palace-hall they bore the knight,
To lie in folemn state, a public sight.
Groans, cries, and howlings, fill the crowded place,
And unaffected forrow fat on every face.
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