What time resentment burn'd in Juno's breast
For Semele against the Theban blood,
As more than once in dire mischance was rued,
Such fatal frenzy seiz'd on Athamas,
That he his spouse beholding with a babe
Laden on either arm, "Spread out," he cried,
"The meshes, that I take the lioness
And the young lions at the pass:" then forth
Stretch'd he his merciless talons, grasping one,
One helpless innocent, Learchus nam'd,
Whom swinging down he dash'd upon a rock,
And with her other burden self-destroy'd
The hapless mother plung'd: and when the pride
Of all-presuming Troy fell from its height,
By fortune overwhelm'd, and the old king
With his realm perish'd, then did Hecuba,
A wretch forlorn and captive, when she saw
Polyxena first slaughter'd, and her son,

From the terrace here, where the hills indent,
You can see the uttermost battlement
Of the castle there; the Cliffords' home;
Where the seasons go and the seasons come
And never a footstep else doth fall
Save the prowling fox's; the ancient hall
Echoes no voice save the owlet's call:
Its turret chambers are homes for the bat;
And its courts are tangled and wild to see;
And where in the cellar was once the rat,
The viper and toad move stealthily.
Long years have passed since the place was burned,
And he sailed to the wars in France and earned
The name that he bears of the bold and true
On his tomb. Long years, since my lord, Sir Hugh,
Lived; and I was his favorite page,
And the thing then happened; and he of an age
When a man will love and be loved again,<...

The peril of fair faces all his days
No man shall 'scape: be it for joy or woe,
Each is the thrall of some predestined face
Divinely doomed to work his overthrow,
Transiently fair, as flowers in gardens blow,
Then fade, and charm no more our listless eyes;
But some fair faces ever fairer grow -
Beware of the dead face that never dies.

No snare young beauty for thy manhood lays,
No honeyed kiss the girls of Paphos know,
Shall hold thee as the silent smiling ways
Of her that went - yet only seemed to go -
With April blossoms and with last year's snow;
Each year she comes again in subtler guise,
And beckons us to her green bed below -
Beware of the dead face that never dies.

The living fade before her lunar gaze,
Her phantom youth their ruddy vei...

When Eastern lovers feed the funeral fire,
On the same pile the faithful pair expire.
Here pitying Heaven that virtue mutual found,
And blasted both, that it might neither wound.
Hearts so sincere, the Almighty saw well pleased,
Sent his own lightning, and the victims seized.


[Lord Harcourt, on whose property the unfortunate pair lived, was apprehensive that the country people would not understand the above, and Pope wrote the subjoined]:--

NEAR THIS PLACE LIE THE BODIES OF
    JOHN HEWET AND SARAH DREW,
        AN INDUSTRIOUS YOUNG MAN,
AND VIRTUOUS MAIDEN OF THIS PARISH;
        WHO, BEING AT HARVEST-WORK
        (WITH SEVERAL OTHERS),
WERE IN ONE INSTANT KILLED BY LIGHTNING,
        THE LAST DAY OF JULY 1718.

Think not, by rigorous judgme...

Lost manor where I walk continually
A ghost, while yet in woman's flesh and blood;
Up your broad stairs mounting with outspread fingers
And gliding steadfast down your corridors
I come by nightly custom to this room,
And even on sultry afternoons I come
Drawn by a thread of time-sunk memory.

Empty, unless for a huge bed of state
Shrouded with rusty curtains drooped awry
(A puppet theatre where malignant fancy
Peoples the wings with fear). At my right hand
A ravelled bell-pull hangs in readiness
To summon me from attic glooms above
Service of elder ghosts; here at my left
A sullen pier-glass cracked from side to side
Scorns to present the face as do new mirrors
With a lying flush, but shows it melancholy
And pale, as faces grow that look in mirrors.<...

Seraph! thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea,
Some ocean vexed as it may be
With storms; but where, meanwhile,
Serenest skies continually
Just o'er that one bright island smile.
For 'mid the earnest cares and woes
That crowd around my earthly path,
(Sad path, alas, where grows
Not even one lonely rose!)
My soul at least a solace hath
In dreams of thee; and therein knows
An Eden of bland repose.

Last evening's huge lax clouds of turbid white
Grew dark and louring, burthened with the rain
Which that long wind monotonous all night
Swept clashing loud through Dreamland's still domain,

Until my spirit in fatigue's despite
Was driven to weary wakefulness again:
With such wild dirge and ceaseless streaming tears
Died out the last of all my ill-used years.

The morn his risen pure and fresh and keen;
Its perfect vault of bright blue heaven spreads bare
Above the earth's wide laughter twinkling green.
The sun, long climbing up with lurid glare
Athwart the storm-rack's rent and hurrying screen,
Leapt forth at dawn to breathe this stainless air;
The strong west wind still streams on full and high,
Inspiring fresher life through earth and sky.

Y...

Life, and Death, and Giants
Such as these, are still.
Minor apparatus, hopper of the mill,
Beetle at the candle,
Or a fife's small fame,
Maintain by accident
That they proclaim.

        My lover died a century ago,
        Her dear heart stricken by my sland'rous breath,
        Wherefore the Gods forbade that I should know
            The peace of death.

        Men pass my grave, and say, "'Twere well to sleep,
        Like such an one, amid the uncaring dead!"
        How should they know the vigils that I keep,
            The tears I shed?

        Upon the grave, I count with lifeless breath,
        Each night, each year, the flowers that bloom and die,
        Deeming the leaves, that fall to dreamless death,
            More blest than I.

        'Twas just last year -- I heard two lovers pass
        So near, I caught the tender words he said:
        To-night the rain-drenched breezes sway the grass
            ...

Let mine not be that saddest fate of all
    To live beyond my greater self; to see
    My faculties decaying, as the tree
Stands stark and helpless while its green leaves fall.
Let me hear rather the imperious call,
    Which all men dread, in my glad morning time,
    And follow death ere I have reached my prime,
Or drunk the strengthening cordial of life's gall.
The lightning's stroke or the fierce tempest blast
    Which fells the green tree to the earth to-day
Is kinder than the calm that lets it last,
    Unhappy witness of its own decay.
    May no man ever look on me and say,
"She lives, but all her usefulness is past."

The nations are in the proving;
Each day is Judgment Day;
And the peoples He finds wanting
Shall pass--by the Shadowy Way.

S' Amor novo consiglio non n' apporta.

HE DESCRIBES HIS SAD STATE.


    If Love to give new counsel still delay,
My life must change to other scenes than these;
My troubled spirit grief and terror freeze,
Desire augments while all my hopes decay.
Thus ever grows my life, by night and day,
Despondent, and dismay'd, and ill at ease,
Harass'd and helmless on tempestuous seas,
With no sure escort on a doubtful way.
Her path a sick imagination guides,
Its true light underneath--ah, no! on high,
Whence on my heart she beams more bright than eye,
Not on mine eyes; from them a dark veil hides
Those lovely orbs, and makes me, ere life's span
Is measured half, an old and broken man.

MACGREGOR.

Come closer, kind, white, long-familiar friend,
    Embrace me, fold me to thy broad, soft breast.
Life has grown strange and cold, but thou dost bend
    Mild eyes of blessing wooing to my rest.
So often hast thou come, and from my side
So many hast thou lured, I only bide
Thy beck, to follow glad thy steps divine.
    Thy world is peopled for me; this world's bare.
    Through all these years my couch thou didst prepare.
Thou art supreme Love - kiss me - I am thine!

When she had left us but a little while
Methought I sensed her spirit here and there
About my house: upon the empty stair
Her robe brusht softly; o'er her chamber still
There lay her fragrant presence to beguile
Numb heart, dead heart. I knelt before her chair,
And praying felt her hand laid on my hair,
Felt her sweet breath, and guess'd her wistful smile.

Then thro' my tears I lookt about the room,
But she was gone. I heard my heart beat fast;
The street was silent; I could not see her now.
Sorrow and I took up our load, and past
To where our station was with heads bent low,
And autumn's death-moan shiver'd thro' the gloom.

My sense reviving, that erewhile had droop'd
With pity for the kindred shades, whence grief
O'ercame me wholly, straight around I see
New torments, new tormented souls, which way
Soe'er I move, or turn, or bend my sight.
In the third circle I arrive, of show'rs
Ceaseless, accursed, heavy, and cold, unchang'd
For ever, both in kind and in degree.
Large hail, discolour'd water, sleety flaw
Through the dun midnight air stream'd down amain:
Stank all the land whereon that tempest fell.

Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange,
Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog
Over the multitude immers'd beneath.
His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard,
His belly large, and claw'd the hands, with which
He tears the spirits, flays them, and their li...

        principibus placuisse viris!
        --HORAT.


Yes, grief will have way--but the fast falling tear
    Shall be mingled with deep execrations on those
Who could bask in that Spirit's meridian career.
    And yet leave it thus lonely and dark at its close:--

Whose vanity flew round him, only while fed
    By the odor his fame in its summer-time gave;--
Whose vanity now, with quick scent for the dead,
    Like the Ghoul of the East, comes to feed at his grave.

Oh! it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow,
    And spirits so mean in the great and high-born;
To think what a long line of titles may follow
    The relics of him who died--friendless and lorn!

How proud they can press to the funeral array
    Of one whom they...

Dolci durezze e placide repulse.

HE OWES HIS OWN SALVATION TO THE VIRTUOUS CONDUCT OF LAURA.


    O sweet severity, repulses mild,
With chasten'd love, and tender pity fraught;
Graceful rebukes, that to mad passion taught
Becoming mastery o'er its wishes wild;
Speech dignified, in which, united, smiled
All courtesy, with purity of thought;
Virtue and beauty, that uprooted aught
Of baser temper had my heart defiled:
Eyes, in whose glance man is beatified--
Awful, in pride of virtue, to restrain
Aspiring hopes that justly are denied,
Then prompt the drooping spirit to sustain!
These, beautiful in every change, supplied
Health to my soul, that else were sought in vain.

DACRE.

"I suppose she was right in rejecting my suit,
But why did she kick me down stairs?"
                        Halleck's "Discarded."




The wing of my spirit is broken,
    My day-star of hope has declined;
For a month not a word have I spoken
    That's either polite or refined.
My mind's like the sky in bad weather,
    When mist-clouds around us are curled:
And, viewing myself altogether,
    I'm the veriest wretch in the world!

I wander about like a vagrant--
    I spend half my time in the street;
My conduct's improper and flagrant,
    For I quarrel with all that I meet.
My dress, too, is wholly neglected,
    My hat I pull over my brow,
And I look like a fellow suspected
    Of wishing to kick up a row.

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