And if he taxes both of long delay,
My guilt is less, who sooner came away.
His pious mother, anxious for his life,
Detain'd her son; and me, my pious wife.
To them the blossoms of our youth were due:
Our riper manhood we reserv'd for you.
But grant me guilty, 'tis not much my care,
When with so great a man my guilt I share :
My wit to war the matchless hero brought,
But by this fool he never had been caught.
"Nor need I wonder, that on me he threw Such foul aspersions, when he spares not you: If Palamede unjustly fell by me,
Your honour suffer'd in th' unjust decree;
I but accus'd, you doom'd: and yet he dy'd,
Convinc'd of treason, and was fairly try'd:
You heard not he was false; your eyes beheld
The traitor manifest; the bribe reveal'd.
"That Philoctetes is on Lemnos left,
Wounded, forlorn, of human aid bereft,
Is not my crime, or not my crime alone;
Defend your justice, for the fact's your own:
'Tis true, th' advice was mine; that staying there
He might his weary limbs with rest repair,
From a long voyage free, and from a longer war.
He took th' counsel, and he lives at least;
Th' event declares I counsell'd for the best:
Though faith is all, in ministers of state;
For who can promise to be fortunate?
Now since his arrows are the fate of Troy,
Do not my wit, or weak address, employ;
Send Ajax there, with his persuasive sense,
To mollify the man, and draw him thence:
But Xanthus shall run backward; Ida stand
A leafless mountain; and the Grecian band
Shall fight for Troy; if, when my counsels fail,
The wit of heavy Ajax can prevail.
"Hard Philoctetes, exercise thy spleen Against thy fellows, and the king of men; Curse my devoted head, above the rest, And wish in arms to meet me breast to breast: Yet I the dangerous task will undertake, And either die myself, or bring thee back.
"Nor doubt the same success, as when before The Phrygian prophet to these tents I bore, Surpriz'd by night, and forc'd him to declare In what was plac'd the fortune of the war; Heaven's dark decrees and answers to display, And how to take the town, and where the secret lay:
Yet this I compass'd, and from Troy convey'd
The fatal image of their guardian maid:
That work was mine; for Pallas, though our friend,
Yet while she was in Troy, did Troy defend.
Now what has Ajax done, or what design'd?
A noisy nothing, and an empty wind.
If he be what he promises in show,
Why was I sent, and why fear'd he to go?
Our boasting champion thought the task not light
To pass the guards, commit himself to night:
Not only through a hostile town to pass,
But scale, with steep ascent, the sacred place;
With wandering steps to search the citadel,
And from the priests their patroness to steal:
Then through surrounding foes to force my way,
And bear in triumph home the heavenly prey;
Which had I not, Ajax in vain had held,
Before that monstrous bulk, his sevenfold shield.
That night to conquer Troy I might be said,
When Troy was liable to conquest made.
"Why point'st thou to my partner of the war?
Tydides had indeed a worthy share
In all my toil and praise; but when thy might
Our ships protected, didst thou singly fight?
All join'd, and thou of many wert but one;
I ask'd no friend, nor had, but him alone:
Who, had he not been well assur'd, that art
And conduct were of war the better part,
And more avail'd than strength, my valiant
friend
Had urg'd a better right, than Ajax can pretend:
As good at least Eurypylus may claim,
And the more moderate Ajax of the name:
The Cretan king, and his brave charioteer,
And Menelaus bold with sword and spear:
All these had been my rivals in the shield,
And yet all these to my pretensions yield.
Thy boisterous hands are then of use, when I
With this directing head those hands apply.
Brawn without brain is thine: my prudent care
Foresees, provides, administers the war:
Thy province is to fight, but when shall be
The time to fight, the king consults with me:
No dram of judgment with thy force is join'd;
Thy body is of profit, and my mind.
By how much more the ship of safety owes
To him who steers, than him that only rows;
By how much more the captain merits praise
Than he who fights, and fighting but obeys;
By so much greater is my worth than thine,
Who canst but execute what I design.
What gain'st thou, brutal man, if I confess
Thy strength superior, when thy wit is less?
Mind is the man: I claim my whole desert
From the mind's vigour, and th' immortal part.
"But you, O Grecian chiefs, reward my care,
Be grateful to your watchman of the war:
For all my labours in so long a space,
Sure I may plead a title to your grace:
Enter the town; I then unbarr'd the gates,
When I remov'd their tutelary fates.
By all our common hopes, if hopes they be
Which I have now reduc'd to certainty;
By falling Troy, by yonder tottering towers,
And by their taken gods, which now are ours;
Or if there yet a farther task remains,
To be perform'd by prudence or by pains;
If yet some desperate action rests behind,
That asks high conduct, and a dauntless mind;
If ought be wanting to the Trojan doom,
Which none but I can manage and o'ercome;
Award those arms I ask, by your decree :
Or give to this what you refuse to me."
He ceas'd: and ceasing with respect he bow'd, And with his hand at once the fatal statue show'd, Heaven, air, and ocean rung, with loud applause. And by the general vote he gain'd his cause. Thus conduct won the prize, when courage fail'd, And eloquence o'er brutal force prevail'd.
THE DEATH OF AJAX.
He who could often, and alone, withstand The foe, the fire, and Jove's own partial hand, Now cannot his unmaster'd grief sustain, But yields to rage, to madness, and disdain; Then snatching out his fauchion, "Thou," said
"Art mine; Ulysses lays no claim to thee.
0 often try'd, and ever trusty sword,
Now do thy last kind office to thy lord:
'Tis Ajax who requests thy aid, to show
None but himself, himself could overthrow."
He said, and, with so good a will to die,
Did to his breast the fatal point apply,
It found his heart, a way till then unknown,
Where never weapon enter'd but his own:
No hands could force it thence, so fixt it stood,
Till out it rush'd, expell'd by streams of spouting
blood.
The fruitful blood produc'd a flower, which grew
On a green stem; and of a purple hue:
Like his, whom, unaware, Apollo slew:
Inscrib'd in both, the letters are the same,
But those express the grief, and these the name.
ACIS, POLYPHEMUS, AND GALATEA.
FROM THE THIRTEENTH BOOK OF
OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.
Acis, the lovely youth, whose loss I mourn,
From Faunus, and the nymph Symethis born,
Was both his parents pleasure; but to me
Was all that Love could make a lover be.
The gods our minds in mutual bands did join:
I was his only joy, and he was mine.
Now sixteen summers the sweet youth had seen;
And doubtful down began to shade his chin:
When Polyphemus first disturb'd our joy,
And lov'd me fiercely, as 1 lov'd the boy.
Ask not which passion in my soul was higher,
My last aversion, or my first desire:
Nor this the greater was, nor that the less;
Both were alike, for both were in excess.
Thee, Venus, thee both Heaven and Earth obey;
Immense thy power, and boundless is thy sway.
The Cyclops, who defy'd th' etherial throne,
And thought no thunder louder than his own,
The terrour of the woods, and wilder far
Than wolves in plains, or bears in forests are,
Th' inhuman host, who made his bloody feasts
On mangled members of his butcher'd guests,
Yet felt the force of love and fierce desire,
And burnt for me, with unrelenting fire:
Forgot his caverns, and his woolly care,
Assum'd the softness of a lover's air;
Thus, warn'd in vain, with stalking pace he strode,
And stamp'd the margin of the briny flood
With heavy steps; and, weary, sought again
The cool retirement of his gloomy den.
A promontory, sharpening by degrees,
Ends in a wedge, and overlooks the seas:
On either side, below, the water flows:
This airy walk the giant-lover chose;
Here on the midst he sate; his flocks, unled,
Their shepherd follow'd, and securely fed.
A pine, so burly, and of length so vast,
That sailing ships requir'd it for a mast,
He wielded for a staff, his steps to guide:
But laid it by, his whistle while he try'd.
A hundred reeds, of a prodigious growth,
Scarce made a pipe proportion'd to his mouth:
Which, when he gave it wind, the rocks around,
And watery plains, the dreadful hiss resound.
I heard the ruffian shepherd rudely blow,
Where, in a hollow cave, I sat below;
On Acis' bosom I my head reclin'd:
And still preserve the poem in my mind.
"O lovely Galatea, whiter far
Than falling snows and rising lilies are;
More flowery than the meads, as crystal bright;
Erect as alders, and of equal height;
More wanton than a kid; more sleek thy skin
Than orient shells, that on the shores are seen:
Than apples fairer, when the boughs they lade;
Pleasing, as winter suns, or summer shade:
More grateful to the sight, than goodly plains;
And softer to the touch, than down of swans,
Or curds new turn'd; and sweeter to the taste,
Than swelling grapes, that to the vintage haste:
More clear than ice, or running streams, that stray
Through garden plots, but ah! more swift than
"Yet, Galatea, harder to be broke [they.
Than bullocks, unreclaim'd to bear the yoke:
And far more stubborn than the knotted oak:
Like sliding streams, impossible to hold;
Like them fallacious; like their fountains, cold:
More warping, than the willow, to decline
My warm embrace; more brittle than the vine;
Immoveable, and fix'd in thy disdain:
Rough, as these rocks, and of a harder grain;
More violent, than is the rising flood:
And the prais'd peacock is not half so proud:
Fierce as the fire, and sharp as thistles are;
And more outrageous than a mother-bear:
Deaf as the billows to the vows I make;
And more revengeful than a trodden snake:
In swiftness fleeter than the flying hind,
And comb'd, with teeth of rakes, his rugged Or driven tempests, or the driving wind.
bair.
Now with a crooked scythe his beard he sleeks,
And mows the stubborn stubble of his cheeks:
Now in the crystal stream he looks, to try
His simagres, and rolls his glaring eye.
His cruelty and thirst of blood are lost;
And ships securely sail along the coast.
The prophet Telemus (arriv'd by chance
Where Etna's summits to the seas advance,
Who mark'd the tracks of every bird that flew,
And sure presages from their flying drew)
Foretold the Cyclops, that Ulysses' hand
In his broad eye should thrust a flaming brand.
The giant, with a scornful grin, reply'd,
"Vain augur, thou hast falsely prophesy'd ;
Already Love his flaming brand has tost;
Looking on two fair eyes, my sight I lost."
All other faults with patience I can bear;
But swiftness is the vice I only fear.
"Yet if you knew me well, you would not shun
My love, but to my wish'd embraces run:
Would languish in your turn, and court my stay;
And much repent of your unwise delay.
"My palace, in the living rock, is made
By Nature's hand; a spacious pleasing shade;
Which neither heat can pierce, nor cold invade.
My garden fill'd with fruits you may behold,
And grapes in clusters, imitating gold;
Some blushing bunches of a purple hue:
And these, and those, are all reserv'd for you.
Red strawberries in shades expecting stand,
Proud to be gather'd by so white a hand.
Autumnal cornels latter fruit provide,
And plums, to tempt you, turn their glossy side:
Not those of common kinds; but' such alone,
As in Phæacian orchards might have grown:
Nor chestnuts shall be wanting to your food,
Nor garden-fruits, nor wildings of the wood;
The laden boughs for you alone shall bear ;
And yours shall be the product of the year.
"The flocks, you see, are all my own; beside
The rest that woods and winding valleys hide,
And those that folded in the caves abide.
Ask not the numbers of my growing store;
Who knows how many, knows he has no more.
Nor will I praise my cattle; trust not me,
But judge yourself, and pass your own decree:
Behold their swelling dugs; the sweepy weight
Of ewes, that sink beneath the milky freight:
In the warm folds their tender lambkins lie,
Apart from kids, that call with human cry.
New milk in nut-brown bowls is duly serv'd
For daily drink; the rest for cheese reserv'd.
Nor are these household dainties all my store:
The fields and forests will afford us more;
The deer, the hare, the goat, the savage boar.
All sorts of venison; and of birds the best;
A pair of turtles taken from the nest :
I'walk'd the mountains, and two cubs I found,
Whose dam had left them on the naked ground;
So like, that no distinction could be seen;
So pretty, they were presents for a queen;
And so they shall; I took them both away;
And keep, to be companions of your play.
"O raise, fair nymph, your beauteous face
above
The waves; nor scorn my presents, and my love.
Come, Galatea, come, and view my face;
I late beheld it in the watery glass,
And found it lovelier than I fear'd it was.
Survey my towering stature, and my size:
Not Jove, the Jove you dream, that rules the skies,
Bears such a bulk, or is so largely spread:
My locks (the plenteous harvest of my head)
Hang o'er my manly face; and dangling down,
As with a shady grove, my shoulders crown.
Nor think, because my limbs and body bear
A thick-set underwood of bristling hair,
My shape deform'd: what fouler sight can be,
Than the bald branches of a leafless tree?
Foul is the steed without a flowing mane;
And birds, without their feathers and their train.
Wool decks the sheep; and man receives a grace
From bushy limbs, and from a bearded face.
My forehead with a single eye is fill'd,
Round as a ball, and ample as a shield.
The glorious lamp of Heaven, the radiant Sun,
Is Nature's eye; and she's content with one.
Add, that my father sways your seas, and I,
Like you, am of the watery family.
I make you his, in making you my own:
You I adore, and kneel to you alone:
Jove, with his faded thunder, I despise,
And only fear the lightning of your eyes.
Frown not, fair nymph; yet I could bear to be
Disdain'd, if others were disdain'd with me.
But to repulse the Cyclops, and prefer
The love of Acis, Heavens! I cannot bear.
But let the stripling please himself; nay more,
Please you, though that's the thing I most abhor;
The boy shall find, if e'er we cope in fight,
These giant limbs endu'd with giant might:
His living bowels from his belly torn,
And scatter'd limbs, shall on the flood be borne,
Thy flood, ungrateful nymph; and Fate shall find
That way for thee and Acis to be join'd.
For oh! I burn with love, and thy disdain
Augments at once my passion and my pain.
Translated Etna flames within my heart,
And thou, inhuman, wilt not ease my smart."
Lamenting thus in vain, he rose, and strode
With furious paces to the neighbouring wood:
Restless his feet, distracted was his walk;
Mad were his motions, and confus'd his talk:
Mad as the vanquish'd bull, when forc'd to yield
His lovely mistress, and forsake the field.
Thus far unseen I saw: when, fatal Chance His looks directing, with a sudden glance, Acis and I were to his sight betray'd: Where, nought suspecting, we securely play'd. From his wide mouth a bellowing cry he cast; "I see, I see, but this shall be your last." A roar so loud made Etna to rebound; And all the Cyclops labour'd in the sound. Affrighted with his monstrous voice, I fled, And in the neighbouring ocean plung'd my head. Poor Acis turn'd his back, and, "Help," he cry'd, Help, Galatea, help, my parent gods,
And take me dying to your deep abodes."
The Cyclops follow'd; but he sent before
A rib, which from the living rock he tore :
Though but an angle reach'd him of the stone,
The mighty fragment was enough alone
To crush all Acis; 'twas too late to save,
But what the Fates allow'd to give, I gave:
That Acis to his lineage should return,
And roll, among the river gods, his urn.
Straight issued from the stone a stream of blood;
Which lost the purple, mingling with the flood.
Then like a troubled torrent it appear'd:
The torrent too, in little space, was clear'd.
The stone was cleft, and through the yawning chink
New reeds arose, on the new river's brink.
The rock, from out its hollow womb, disclos'd
A sound like water in its course oppos'd:
When (wondrous to behold) full in the flood,
Up starts a youth, and navel-high he stood.
Horns from his temples rise; and either horn
Thick wreaths of reeds (his native growth) adorn.
Were not his stature taller than before,
His bulk augmented, and his beauty more,
His colour blue, for Acis he might pass:
And Acis chang'd into a stream he was.
But, mine no more, he rolls along the plains
With rapid motion, and his name retains.
FROM THE FIFTEENTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.
The fourteenth book concludes with the death and deification of Romulus: the fifteenth begins with the election of Numa to the crown of Rome. On this occasion, Ovid, following the opinion of some authors, makes Numa the scholar of Pythagoras; and to have begun his acquaintance with that philosopher at Crotona, a town in Italy; from thence he makes a digression to the
moral and natural philosophy of Pythagoras:
on both which our author enlarges; and which
are the most learned and beautiful parts of the
Metamorphoses.
A KING is sought, to guide the glowing state,
One able to support the public weight,
And fill the throne where Romulus had sate.
Renown, which oft bespeaks the public voice,
Had recommended Numa to their choice:
A peaceful, pious prince; who, not content
To know the Sabine rites, his study bent
To cultivate his mind: to learn the laws
Of Nature, and explore their hidden cause:
Urg'd by this care, his country he forsook,
And to Crotona thence his journey took.
Arriv❜d, he first inquir'd the founder's name
Of this new colony: and whence he came.
Then thus a senior of the place replies,
(Well read, and curious of antiquities)
"Tis said, Alcides hither took his way
From Spain, and drove along his conquer'd prey;
Then, leaving in the fields his grazing cows,
He sought himself some hospitable house:
Good Croton entertain'd his godlike guest,
While he repair'd his weary limbs with rest.
The hero, thence departing, bless'd the place;
'And here,' he said, 'in Time's revolving race,
A rising town shall take its name from thee;'
Revolving Time fulfill'd the prophecy:
For Myscelos, the justest man on Earth,
Alernon's son, at Argos had his birth:
Him Hercules, arm'd with his club of oak,
O'ershadow'd in a dream, and thus bespoke;
'Go, leave thy native soil, and make abode
Where Æsaris rolls down his rapid flood ;'
He said; and sleep forsook him, and the god.
Trembling he wak'd, and rose with anxious heart;
His country laws forbad him to depart :
What should he do? 'Twas death to go away;
And the god menac'd if he dar'd to stay:
All day he doubted; and when night came on,
Sleep, and the same forewarning dream, begun :
Once more the god stood threatening o'er his
head;
With added curses if he disobey'd.
Twice warn'd, he study'd flight; but would convey,
At once, his person and his wealth away:
Thus while he linger'd, his design was heard;
A speedy process form'd, and death declar'd.
Witness there needed none of his offence,
Against himself the wretch was evidence:
Condemn'd, and destitute of human aid,
To him, for whom he suffered, thus he pray'd:
'O power, who hast deserv'd in Heaven a throne
Not given, but by thy labours made thy own,
Pity thy suppliant, and protect his cause,
Whom thou hast made obnoxious to the laws.'
"A custom was of old, and still remains,
Which life or death by suffrages ordains;
White stones and black within an urn are cast,
The first absolve, but fate is in the last:
The judges to the common urn bequeath
Their votes, and drop the sable signs of death;
The box receives all black; but, pour'd from thence,
The stones came candid forth, the hue of inno-
Thus Alimonides his safety won,
[cence.
Preserv'd from death by Alcumena's son:
Then to his kinsman god his vows he pays,
And cuts with prosperous gales th' Ionian seas:
He leaves Tarentum, favour'd by the wind,
And Thurine bays, and Temises, behind;
Soft Sibaris, and all the capes that stand
Along the shore, he makes in sight of land;
Still doubling, and still coasting, till he found
The mouth of Æsaris, and promis'd ground:
Then saw where, on the margin of the flood,
The tomb that held the bones of Croton stood:
Here, by the god's command, he built and wail'd
The place predicted; and Crotona call'd:
Thus Fame, from time to time, delivers down
The sure tradition of th' Italian town."
Here dwelt the man divine whom Samos bore,
But now self-banish'd from his native shore,
Because he hated tyrants, nor could bear
The chains which none but servile souls will wear:
He, though from Heaven remote, to Heaven could
move,
With strength of mind, and tread th' abyss above;
And penetrate, with his interior light,
Those upper depths, which Nature hid from sight:
And what he had observ'd, and learnt from thence,
Lov'd in familiar language to dispense.
The crowd with silent admiration stand,
And heard him, as they heard their god's com
mand;
While he discours'd of Heaven's mysterious laws,
The World's original, and Nature's cause;
And what was God, and why the fleecy snows
In silence fell, and rattling winds arose;
What shook the stedfast Earth, and whence begun
The dance of planets round the radiant Sun;
If thunder was the voice of angry Jove,
Or clouds, with nitre pregnant, burst above:
Of these, and things beyond the common reach,
He spoke, and charm'd his audience with his
speech.
He first the taste of flesh from tables drove,
And argued well, if arguments could move.
"O mortals! from your fellows blood abstain,
Nor taint your bodies with a food profane:
While corn and pulse by Nature are bestow'd,
And planted orchards bend their willing load;
While labour'd gardens wholesome herbs produce,'
And teeming vines afford their generous juice;
Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are lost,
But tam'd with fire, or mellow'd by the frost;
While kine to pails distended udders bring,
And bees their honey redolent of spring;
While Earth not only can your needs supply,
But, lavish of her store, provides for luxury;
A guiltless feast administers with ease,
And without blood is prodigal to please.
Wild beasts their maws with their slain brethren
fill,
And yet not all, for some refuse to kill:
Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler steed,
On browz, and corn, the flowery meadows feed.
Bears, tigers, wolves, the lion's angry brood,
Whom Heaven endued with principles of blood,
He wisely sunder'd from the rest, to yell
In forests, and in lonely caves to dwell,
Where stronger beasts oppress the weak by might,
And all in prey and purple feasts delight.
"O impious use! to Nature's laws oppos'd,
Where bowels are in other bowels clos'd:
Where, fatten'd by their fellows' fat, they thrive;
Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live.
'Tis then for nought that mother Earth provides
The stores of all she shows, and all she hides,
If men with fleshy morsels must be fed,
And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing bread;
What else is this but to devour our guests,
And barbarously renew Cyclopean feasts!
We, by destroying life, our life sustain ;
And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats obscene.
"Not so the golden age, who fed on fruit,
Nor durst with bloody meals their mouths pollute.
Then birds in airy space might safely move,
And timorous hares on heaths securely rove,
Nor needed fish the guileful hooks to fear,
For all was peaceful, and that peace sincere.
Whoever was the wretch (and curs'd be he)
That envy'd first our food's simplicity;
Th' essay of bloody feasts on brutes began,
And after forg'd the sword to murder man;
Had he the sharpen'd steel alone employ'd
On beasts of prey that other beasts destroy'd,
Or men invaded with their fangs and paws,
This had been justify'd by Nature's laws,
And self-defence: but who did feasts begin
Of flesh, he stretch'd necessity to sin.
To kill man-killers, man has lawful power;
But not th' extended licence, to devour.
"Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
The sow, with her broad snout for rooting up
Th' intrusted seed, was judg'd to spoil the crop,
And intercept the sweating farmer's hope:
The covetous churl, of unforgiving kind,
Th' offender to the bloody priest resign'd:
Her hunger was no plea; for that she dy'd.
The goat came next in order, to be try'd:
The goat had cropt the tendrils of the vine:
In vengeance laity and clergy join,
Where one had lost his profit, one his wine.
Here was, at least, some shadow of offence:
The sheep was sacrific'd on no pretence,
But meek and unresisting innocence,
A patient, useful creature, born to bear
The warm and woolly fleece, that cloth'd her murderer,
And daily to give down the milk she bred,
A tribute for the grass on which she fed.
Living, both food and raiment she supplies,
And is of least advantage when she dies.
"How did the toiling ox his death deserve,
A downright simple drudge, and born to serve ?
O tyrant! with what justice canst thou hope
The promise of the year, a plenteous crop ;
When thou destroy'st thy labouring steer, who till'd,
And plow'd, with pains, thy else ungrateful field?
From his yet reeking neck to draw the yoke,
That neck with which the surly clods he broke;
And to the hatchet yield thy husbandman,
Who finish'd autumn, and the spring began!
Nor this alone! but Heaven itself to bribe,
We to the gods our impious acts ascribe:
First recompense with death their creatures toil,
Then call the bless'd above to share the spoil:
The fairest victim must the powers appease:
(So fatal 'tis sometimes too much to please!)
A purple fillet his broad brows adorns,
With flowery garlands crown'd, and gilded horns:
He hears the murderous prayer the priest prefers,
But understands not 'tis his doom he hears:
Beholds the meal betwixt his temples cast
(The fruit and product of his labours past);
And in the water views perhaps the knife
Uplifted, to deprive him of his life;
Then broken up alive, his entrails sees
Torn out, for priests t' inspect th' gods decrees.
"From whence, O mortal men, this gust of
Have you deriv'd, and interdicted food? [blood
Be taught by me this dire delight to shun,
Warn'd by my precepts, by my practice won:
And, when you eat the well-deserving beast,
Think, on the labourer of your field you feast!
"Now since the god inspires me to proceed,
Be that, whate'er inspiring power, obey'd.
For I will sing of mighty mysteries,
Of truths conceal'd before from human eyes,
Dark oracles unveil, and open all the skies.
Pleas'd as I am to walk along the sphere
Of shining stars, and travel with the year,
To leave the heavy Earth, and scale the height
Of Atlas, who supports the heavenly weight:
To look from upper light, and thence survey
Mistaken mortals wandering from the way,
And wanting wisdom, fearful for the state
Of future things, and trembling at their fate!
"Those 1 would teach; and by right reason
To think of death, as but an idle thing. [bring
Why thus affrighted at an empty name,
A dream of darkness, and fictitious flame?
Vain themes of wit, which but in poems pass,
And fables of a world, that never was!
What feels the body when the soul expires,
By time corrupted, or consum'd by fires?
Nor dies the spirit, but new life repeats
In other forms, and only changes seats.
"Ev'n I, who these mysterious truths declare,
Was once Euphorbus in the Trojan war;
My name and lineage I remember well,
And how in fight by Sparta's king I fell.
In Argive Juno's fane I late beheld [shield.
My buckler hung on high, and own'd my former
"Then death, so call'd, is but old matter dress'd
In some new figure, and a vary'd vest:
Thus all things are but alter'd, nothing dies;
And here and there th' unbody'd spirit flies,
By time, or force, or sickness dispossest,
And lodges, where it lights, in man or beast;
Or hunts without, 'till ready limbs it find,
And actuates those according to their kind;
From tenement to tenement is toss'd;
The soul is still the same, the figure only lost:
And as the soften'd wax new seals receives,
This face assumes, and that impression leaves;
Now call'd by one, now by another name; [same:
The form is only chang'd, the wax is still the
So death, so call'd, can but the form deface,
Th' immortal soul flies out in empty space;
To seek her fortune in some other place.
"Then let not piety be put to flight,
To please the taste of glutton appetite;
But suffer inmate souls secure to dwell,
Lest from their seats your parents you expel;
With rabid hunger feed upon your kind,
Or from a beast dislodge a brother's mind.
"And since, like Tiphys, parting from the shore,
In ample seas I sail, and depths untry'd before,
This let me further add, that Nature knows
No stedfast station; but, or ebbs, or flows:
Ever in motion; she destroys her old,
And casts new figures in another mould.
"Ev'n times are in perpetual flux; and run,
Like rivers from their fountain, rolling on;
For Time, no more than streams, is at a stay:
The flying hour is ever on her way;
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