And the high dome re-echoes to his nose. 'Now meet thy fate,' incensed Belinda cried, And drew a deadly bodkin from her side. (The same, his ancient personage to deck, whose fires Her great great grandsire wore about his neck, 90 In three seal-rings; which after, melted down, Formed a vast buckle for his widow's gown: Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew, The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew; Then in a bodkin graced her mother's hairs, Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.) 96 'Boast not my fall,' he cried, 'insulting foe! Thou by some other shalt be laid as low, Nor think to die dejects my lofty mind: All that I dread is leaving you behind! Rather than so, ah, let me still survive, 100 And burn in Cupid's flames - but burn alive.' 'Restore the lock!' she cries; and all around 'Restore the lock!' the vaulted roofs rebound. Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain 105 Roared for the handkerchief that caused his pain. But see how oft ambitious aims are crossed, And chiefs contend till all the prize is lost! The lock, obtained with guilt, and kept with pain, In every place is sought, but sought in vain : With such a prize no mortal must be blessed, So Heaven decrees! with Heaven who can contest? 112 And hence the egregious wizard shall foredoom The fate of Louis and the fall of Rome. 140 Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravished hair, Which adds new glory to the shining sphere! Not all the tresses that fair head can boast, Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost. For, after all the murders of your eye, 145 When, after millions slain, yourself shall die: When those fair suns shall set, as set they must, And all those tresses shall be laid in dust, This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame, And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's 150 name. (1712, 1714) FROM EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT Why did I write? what sin to me unknown Dipped me in ink, my parents', or my own? I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came. The Muse but served to ease some friend, not wife, To help me through this long disease, my life, To second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care, And teach the being you preserved, to bear. 10 And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; 50 Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 60 And wonder with a foolish face of praise Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus were he! (1735) JAMES THOMSON (1700-1748) Thomson was a Scotchman who, at the height of Pope's reign, went to seek his fortune in literary London. He arrived in need of a pair of shoes and lost the packet of recommendations which he had tied up in his handkerchief; but he was kindly received by his brother poets, and enjoyed sufficient patronage from the rich to preserve him from actual want. The four parts of The Seasons which appeared in rapid succession (1726-30) made his reputation, and a series of stiff tragedies in blank verse had a lukewarm success on the stage. Politically, he adhered to the opposition and was one of a group, including the poet Collins, which gathered, around Lord Lyttleton at Hagley, under the 'precarious patronage' of Frederick, Prince of Wales. Thomson was an indolent man more fat than bard beseems,' luxurious and procrastinating, and the last fifteen years of his life originated little that was important. The Castle of Indolence, which commemorates the Hagley company, was begun in 1733, though not completed until two years before his death. Dull in unfamiliar society, Thomson was loyally and deeply beloved by those who intimately knew him. His warm and truthful delineations of nature and his resource in the older harmonies of English verse helped to inaugurate a new era in poetry. Notwithstanding these tendencies, Pope regarded him with respect and favor. In the next generation, Dr. Johnson abated his prejudice against blank verse in favor of The Seasons, and forgot his hostility to Spenserism in commenting on The Castle of Indolence. He thinks always as a man of genius; he looks round on Nature and on Life with the eye which Nature bestows only on a poet,' was Johnson's summary of his abilities. 35 O let not, aimed from some inhuman eye, A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf 40 |