Hid from the jealous Amphitritè's sight;
And said he could conduct me to the place.
I begg'd he would. Through dreadful ways we
pass'd,
"Twixt rocks that frightfully lour'd on either side, Whence here and there the branching coral sprung; O'er dead men's bones we walk'd, o'er heaps of gold and gems,
Into a hideous kind of wilderness,
Where stood a stern and prison-looking rock,
Daub'd with a mossy verdure all around,
The mockery of paint. As we drew near
Out sprung a hydra from a den below,
A speckled fury; fearfully it hiss'd,
And roll'd its seagreen eyes so angrily
As it would kill with looking. My old guide
Against its sharp head hurl'd a rugged stone-
The curling monster raised a brazen shriek,
Wallow'd, and died in fitful agonies.
We gain'd the cave. Through woven adamant
I look'd, and saw my sister all alone.
Employ'd she seem'd in writing something sad,
So sad she look'd: her cheek was wondrous wan,
Her mournful locks like weary sedges hung.
I call'd-she, turning, started when she saw me,
And threw her head aside, as if ashamed;
She wept, but would not speak-I call'd again:
Still she was mute. Then madly I address'd,
With all the lion-sinews of despair,
To break the flinty ribs that held me out;
And with the struggling waked.-—
Raised to account for the late Return of a Messenger.
THE sun went down in wrath; The skies foam'd brass, and soon the' unchain'd winds
Burst from the howling dungeon of the north;
And raised such high delirium on the main,
Such angry clamour; while such boiling waves
Flash'd on the peevish eye of moody night,
It look'd as if the seas would scald the heavens.
Still louder chid the winds, the' enchafed surge
Still answer'd louder; and when the sickly morn
Peep'd ruefully through the blotted, thick-brow'd
To view the ruinous havoc of the dark, [eást,
The stately towers of Athens seem'd to stand
On hollow foam, tide-whipp'd; the ships that lay,
Scorning the blast, within the marble arms
Of the sea-chid Portumnus, danced like corks
Upon the' enraged deep, kicking each other;
And some were dash'd to fragments in this fray,
Against the harbour's rocky chest. The sea
So roar'd, so madly raged, so proudly swell'd,
As it would thunder full into the streets,
And steep the tall Cecropian battlements
In foaming brine. The airy citadel,
Perch'd like an eagle on a high-brow'd rock,
Shook the salt water from its stubborn sides
With eager quaking; the Cyclades appear'd
Like ducking cormorants-Such a mutiny
Outclamour'd all tradition, and gain'd belief
To ranting prodigies of heretofore.
Seven days it storm'd, &c.
WRITTEN AT MR. THOMSON'S DESIRE, TO BE INSERTED INTO THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE'.
FULL many a fiend did haunt this house of rest,
And made of passive wights an easy prey. Here Lethargy, with deadly sleep oppress'd, Stretch'd on his back, a mighty lubbard, lay Heaving his sides; and snored night and day. To stir him from his traunce it was not eath, And his half-open'd eyne he shut straightway: He led I ween the softest way to death, And taught withouten pain or strife to yield the breath.
Of limbs enormous, but withal unsound,
Soft-swollen and pale,here lay the Hydropsy;
Unwieldy man, with belly monstrous round,
For ever fed with watery supply;
For still he drank, and yet he still was dry.
And here a moping Mystery did sit,
Mother of Spleen, in robes of various dye :
She call'd herself the Hypochondriac Fit, And frantic seem'd to some, to others seem'd a wit.
'See the concluding stanzas of Canto I. where they appear to have undergone emendation from the pen of Thomson.
A lady was she whimsical and proud,
Yet oft through fear her pride would crouchen low.
She felt or fancied, in her fluttering mood,
All the diseases that the Spittals know, And sought all physic that the shops bestow; And still new leaches and new drugs would try.
"Twas hard to hit her humour, high or low, For sometimes she would laugh and sometimes cry,
Sometimes would waxen wroth; and all she knew not why.
Fast by her side a listless virgin pined, With aching head and squeamish heartburuings;
Pale, bloated, cold, she seem'd to hate mankind,
But loved in secret all forbidden things. And here the Tertian shook his chilling wings; And here the Gout, half tiger, half a snake, Raged with a hundred teeth, a hundred stings;
These and a thousand furies more did shake Those weary realms, and kept ease-loving men awake.
An Epistle to John Wilkes, Esq.
ESCAPED from London now four moons and more,
I greet gay Wilkes from Fulda's wasted shore,
Where,clothed with woods,a hundred hills ascend,
Where Nature many a paradise has plann'd:
A land that, e'en amid contending arms,
Late smiled with culture and luxuriant charms.
But now the hostile scythe has bared her soil,
And her sad peasants starve for all their toil.
What news to-day?—I ask you not what rogue,
What paltry imp of fortune's now in vogue?
What forward blundering fool was last preferr'd,
By mere pretence distinguish'd from the herd?
With what new cheat the gaping town is smit?
What crazy scribbler reigns the present wit?
What stuff for winter the two booths have mix'd?
What bouncing mimic grows a Roscius' next?
Wave all such news: I've seen too much, my
To stare at any wonders of that kind. [friend,
News, none have I: you know I never had,
I never long'd the day's dull lie to spread;
I left to gossips that sweet luxury,
More in the secrets of the great than I.
To nurses, midwives, all the slippery train
That swallow all, and bring up all again :
An unlucky allusion, which drew down the vindictive retaliation of Churchill.
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