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and particularly by your sex, that you must give me leave to explain two or three difficult

terms.

The Rosicrucians are a people I must bring you acquainted with. The best account I know of them is in a French book called Le Comte de Gabalis, which, both in its title and size, is so like a novel, that many of the fair sex have read it for one by mistake. According to these gentlemen, the four elements are inhabited by Spirits which they call Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and Salamanders. The Gnomes, or Demons of Earth, delight in mischief; but the Sylphs, whose habitation is in the air, are the best conditioned creatures imaginable. For they say, any mortals may enjoy the most intimate familiarities with these gentle Spirits, upon a condition very easy to all true adepts, an inviolate preservation of chastity.

As to the following Cantos, all the passages of them are as fabulous as the vision at the beginning, or the transformation at the end, except the loss of your hair, which I always mention with reverence. The human persons are as fictitious as the airy ones; and the character of Belinda, as it is now managed, resembles you in nothing but in beauty.

If this Poem had as many graces as there are in your person, or in your mind, yet I could never hope it should pass through the world half so uncensured as you have done. But let its fortune be what it will, mine is happy enough, to have given me this occasion of assuring you that I am, with the truest esteem,

Madam,

Your most obedient, humble servant,
A. POPE.

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Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos;
Sed juvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis.-MART.

CANTO I.

HAT dire offence from amorous causes

springs,

What mighty contests rise from
trivial things,

I sing this verse to Caryll, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view;
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If she inspire, and he approve my lays.

5

Say what strange motive, goddess! could compel

A well-bred lord to assault a gentle belle ?
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplored,
Could make a gentle belle reject a lord?

IO

1 The first sketch of this poem was written in less than a fortnight's time in 1711, in two cantos, and so printed in a miscellany without the name of the author. The machines were not inserted till a year after, when he published it, and annexed the dedication.-P.

The original poem was published in 1712, and the revised form not till 1714. For an account of the origin of this poem see the Memoir, p. xiv.

In tasks so bold, can little men engage,
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage?
Sol through white curtains shot a timorous

ray,

And oped those eyes that must eclipse the day : Now lapdogs give themselves the rousing shake, And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake: 16 Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knocked the ground,

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25

And the pressed watch returned a silver sound.
Belinda still her downy pillow pressed,'
Her guardian Sylph prolonged the balmy rest :
'Twas he had summoned to her silent bed
The morning dream that hovered o'er her head ;
A youth more glittering than a birth-night beau,2
(That even in slumber caused her cheek to glow)
Seemed to her ear his winning lips to lay,
And thus in whispers said, or seemed to say:
"Fairest of mortals, thou distinguished care
Of thousand bright inhabitants of air!
If e'er one vision touched thy infant thought,
Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught;
Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen,
The silver token, and the circled green,
Or virgins visited by angel-powers,
With golden crowns and wreaths of heavenly
flowers;

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34

Hear and believe! thy own importance know, Nor bound thy narrow views to things below. Some secret truths, from learned pride concealed,

To maids alone and children are revealed:

1 All the verses from hence to the end of this Canto were added afterwards.-P.

2 Alluding to the custom of wearing exceptionally fine dresses at court on the birthdays of any of the royal family.

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What though no credit doubting wits may give ?
The fair and innocent shall still believe.
Know, then, unnumbered spirits round thee fly,
The light militia of the lower sky:
These, though unseen, are ever on the wing,
Hang o'er the box, and hover round the ring.
Think what an equipage thou hast in air,
And view with scorn two pages and a chair.
As now your own, our beings were of old,
And once inclosed in woman's beauteous mould;
Thence, by a soft transition, we repair
From earthly vehicles to these of air.

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50

Think not, when woman's transient breath is fled,

That all her vanities at once are dead;
Succeeding vanities she still regards,

And though she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards.

55

60

Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive,1
And love of ombre, after death survive.
For when the fair in all their pride expire,
To their first elements their souls retire:
The sprites of fiery termagants in flame
Mount up, and take a salamander's name.
Soft yielding minds to water glide away,
And sip, with nymphs, their elemental tea.
The graver prude sinks downward to a gnome,
In search of mischief still on earth to roam.
The light coquettes in sylphs aloft repair,
And sport and flutter in the fields of air.

65

"Know further yet: whoever fair and chaste Rejects mankind, is by some sylph embraced : For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease

1

66

Quæ gratia currûm Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos." Virg. Æn. vi.-P.

-1

Assume what sexes and what shapes they please.
What guards the purity of melting maids,
In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades,
Safe from the treacherous friend, the daring
spark,

The glance by day, the whisper in the dark, -4
When kind occasion prompts their warm desires,
When music softens, and when dancing fires?
"Tis but their Sylph, the wise celestials know,
Though Honour is the word with men below.
"Some nymphs there are, too conscious of
their face,

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For life predestined to the gnome's embrace. Those swell their prospects and exalt their

pride,

When offers are disdained and love denied:

Then gay ideas crowd the vacant brain,

While poors and dukes, and all their sweeping

train,

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"Tis those that early taint the female soul,
Instruct the eyes of young coquettes to roll,
Tonch infant-cheeks a bidden blush to know,
And little hearts to flutter at a beau.

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"Oft, when the world imagine women stray, The Sylphs through mystic mazes guide their

way,

Through all the giddy circle they pursue,
And old impertinence expel by new.
What tender maid but must a victim fall
To one man's treat, but for another's ball?
Whon Florio speaks, what virgin could with-

stand,

If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand?
With varying vanities, from every part,

95

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