140 FROM POPE'S SATIRES. Ah, thoughtless! how could I forget? For wheresoe'er I look'd, the while Still came and linger'd on my sight, They ere the world had held me long BRYANT. FROM THE PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES AD- SHUT up the door, good John! fatigued, I said, Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide? They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide; By land, by water, they renew the charge; They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me just at dinner-time. Is there a mortal much bemused in beer, A clerk foredoomed his father's soul to cross, 1 What drop or nostrum can this plague remove? If foes, they write; if friends, they read me dead. With honest anguish and with aching head, This saving counsel, "Keep your piece nine years." POPE. UNA. NOUGHT is there under heaven's wide hollowness That moves more dear compassion of the mind, Than beauty brought t' unworthy wretchedness Through envy's snares, or fortune's freaks unkind. I, whether lately through her brightness blind, Feel my heart pierced with so great agony For fairest Una's sake, of whom I sing, That my frail eyes these lines with tears do steep, And her due loves derived to that vile witche's share. Yet she, most woefull lady, all this while Far from all people's press as in exile, Had her abandon'd: she of nought affray'd, Through woods and wasteness wide him daily sought, Yet wished tidings none of him unto her brought. One day, nigh weary of the irksome way, HYMN TO THE SEA. 143 From her fair head her fillet she undight, It fortunèd, out of the thickest wood And with the sight amazed, forgot his furious force. Instead thereof, he kist her weary feet, And lick'd her lily hands with fawning tongue; SPENSER. HYMN TO THE SEA. WHO shall declare the secret of thy birth, Through the vast silence stirred, Roll back the folded darkness of the primal night? 144 HYMN TO THE SEA. Corruption-like, thou teemedst in the graves Of mouldering systems, with dark weltering waves Troubling the peace of the first mother's womb; Whose ancient awful form, With inly-tossing storm, Unquiet heavings kept-a birth-place and a tomb. Till the life-giving Spirit moved above Through thine abyss was heard, And swam from out thy deeps the young day heavenly bright. Thou and the earth, twin-sisters as they say, The summer hours away, . Curling thy loving ripples up her quiet shore. She is a married matron long ago, With nations at her side; her milk doth flow Each year: but thee no husband dares to tame; Thy wild will is thine own, Thy sole and virgin throne Thy mood is ever changing-thy resolve the same. Sunlight and moonlight minister to thee;- |