Rapid and refflefs ; fprings from part to part,
The blooming honours of your youth are fallen;
Your vigour pines your vital pow'rs decay;
Difeafes haunt you; and untimely age
Creeps on, unfocial, impotent, and lewd.
Iufatuate, impious epicure! to waste

The flores of pleafure, cheerfulness, and health!
Infatuate all who make delight their trade,
And coy perdition ev'ry hour pursue.

Who pines with love, or in lafcivious flames
Confumes, is with his own confent undone ;
He chufes to be wretched, to be mad,
And warn'd proceeds and wilful to his fate.
But there's a paffion, whofe tempeftuous fway
Tears up each virtue planted in the breaft,
And fhakes to ruin proud Philofophy."
For pale and trembling Anger rufhes in,
With faultering fpeech, and eyes that wildly flare;
Fierce as the tiger, madder than the feas,

Defperate, and arm'd with more than human strength
How foon the calm, humane, and polish'd man
Forgets compunction, and ftarts up a fiend:
Who pines in love, or wafles with filent cares,
Envy, or ignominy, or tender grief,

Slowly defcends, and ling'ring, to the fhades.
But he whom anger flings, drops, if he dies,
At once, and rufhes apoplectic down;
Or a fierce fever hurries him to hell.
For, as the body thro' unnumber'd firings
Reverberates each vibration of the foul;
As is the paffion, fuch is ftill the pain
The body feeis; or chronic, or acute.
And oft a fudden florm at once o'erpow'rs
The life, or gives your reafon to the winds,
Such fates attend the rafh alarm of fear,
And fudden grief, and rage, and fudden joy.

There are, meantime, to whom the boift'rous fit
Is health, and only fills the fails of life;

E 3

For

For where the mind a torpid winter leads,
Wrapt in a body corpulent and cold,
And each clogg'd function lazily moves on,
A generous fally fpurns th' incumbent load,
Unlocks the breaft, and gives a cordial glow.
But, if your wrathful blood is apt to boil,
Or are your nerves too irritably trung,
Wave all difpute; be cautious if you joke,
Keep Lent for ever, and forfwear the bowl;
For one rafh moment fends you to the fhades,
Or fhatters ev'ry hopeful scheme of life,
And gives to horror all your days to come.
Fate, arm'd with thunder, fire, and ev'ry plague
That ruins, tortures, or diftracts mankind,
And makes the happy wretched, in an hour
O'erwhelms you not with woes fo horrible
As your own wrath, nor gives more fudden blows.
While choler works, good friend, you may be wrong
Diftruft yourself, and fleep before you fight,
'Tis not too late to-morrow to be brave;
If honour bids, to-morrow kill or die.
But calm advice against a raging fit
Avails too little; and it braves the pow'r
Of all that ever taught in profe or fong,
To tame the fiend that fleeps a gentle lamb,
And wakes a lion. Unprovok'd and calm,
You reafon well, fee as you ought to fee,
And wonder at the madness of mankind.;.
Seiz'd with the common rage, you foon forget
The fpeculation of your wifer hours.
Befet with furies of all deadly fhapes,
Fierce and infiduous, violent and flow,
With all that urge or lure us on to fate,
What refuge fhall we feek, what arms
prepare
P
Where reafon proves too weak, or void of wiles,
To cope with fubtle or impetuous pow'rs,
I would invoke new pallions to your aid;
With indignation would extinguifh fear,
With fear or generous pity vanquilh rage,

And

And love with pride; and force to force oppofe.
There is a charm, a pow'r that sways the breaft
Bids every paffion revel or be ftill;

Infpires with rage, or all your cares diffolves;
Can footh diftraction, and almost despair..
That pow'r is mufic: far beyond the ftretch
Of thofe unmeaning warblers on our tage;
Thofe clumfy heroes, thofe fat-headed gods,
Who move no paffion juftly but contempt;
Who, like our dancers (light indeed and ftrong!),
Do wondrous feats, but never heard of grace.
The fault is ours; we bear thofe monftrous arts:
Good Heaven! we praife them; we with loudeft peal
Applaud the fool that higheft lifts his heels,
And with infipid fhow of rapture die.
Of idiot notes impertinently long.
But he the Mufe's laurel juflly shares,

A poet he, and touch'd with Heaven's own fire,
Who with bold rage, or folemn pomp of founds,
Inflames, exalts, and ravifhes the foul;
Now tender, plaintive, fweet almoft to pain,"
In love diffolves you; now in fprightly flrains
Breathes a gay rapture thro' your thrilling breaff,
Or melts the heart with airs divinely fad,
Or wakes to horror the tremendous ftrings.
Such was the bard whose heavenly ftrains of old
Appeas'd the fiend of melancholy Saul.
Such was, if old and heathen fame fay true,
The man who bade the Theban domes afcend,
And tam'd the favage nations with his fong;
And fuch the Thracian, whofe harmonious lyre.
Tun'd to foft woe, made all the mountains weep;
Sooth'd ev'n th' inexorable pow'rs of Hell,
And half redeem'd his loft Eurydice.
Mufic exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels difeafes, foftens ev'ry pain,
Subdues the rage of poifon, and the plague;
And hence the wife of ancient days ador'd
One pow'r of phyfic, melody and fong, wa

HECTOR

HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE's PARTING,

'BEFORE HE ENGAGES.

By ALEXANDER POPE.

HECTOR, this heard, return'd without delay
Swift through the town he trod his former way,
Through fireets of palaces, and walks of ftate,
And met the mourner at the Scæen gate.
With hafte to meet him fprung the joyful fair,
His blameless wife, Action's wealthy heir;
The nurse stood near, in whofe embraces preft
His only hope hung fmiling at her breaft,]
Whom each foft charm and early grace adorn,
Fair as the new-born ftar that gilds the morn.
Silent the warrior fmil'd, and pleas'd.refign'd
To tender paffions all his mighty mind:
His beauteous princefs caft a mournful look,
Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke ;*
Her bofom labour'd with a boding figh,
And the big tear flood trembling in her eye:

Too daring prince! ah, whither do thou run?
Ah, too forgetful of thy wife and fon!

And think'ft, thou not, how wretched we fhall bey
A widow I, an helpless orphan he!
For fure fuch courage length of life denies,
And thou must fall thy virtue's facrifice.
Greece in her fingle heroes frove in vain :
Now hofts oppofe thee, and thou must be flain!
O grant me, gods! ere Hector meets his doom,
All I can afk of Heaven, an early tomb!
So fhall my days in one fad tenor run,
And end with forrows, as they firft begun..

* See the Plate.

No

No parent now remains my grief to fhare,
No father's aid, no mother's tender care.

Yet, while my Hector fill furvives, I fee
My father, mother, brethern, all in thee.
Alas! my parents, brothers, kindred, all,
Once more will perish, if my Hector fall.
Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger fhare:
O prove a hufband's and a father's care!
Let others in the field their arms employ,
But ftay my Hector here, and guard his Troy

-Th' illuftrious chief of Troy

Stretch'd his fond arms to clafp the lovely boy.
The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast,
Scar'd at the dazzling helm, and nodding creft.
With fecret pleafure each fond parent fmil'd,
And Hector hafted to relieve his child,

The glitt'ring terrors from his brows unbound,
And plac'd the beaming helmet on the ground,
Then kifs'd the child, and, lifting high in air,
Thus to the gods preferr'd a father's pray'r.

O Thou whofe glory fills th'ethereal throne,
And all ye deathlefs pow'rs, protect my fon!
Grant him, like me, to purchase juft renown,
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown;
Against his country's foe the war to wage,
And rife the Hector of the future age!
So when, triumphant from fuccefsful toils,
Of heroes flain he bears the reeking fpoils,
Whole hofts may hail him with deferv'd acclaim,
And fay, this chief tranfcends his father's fame;
While, pleas'd amidst the general shouts of Troy,
His mother's confcious heart o'erflows with joy.

He fpoke; and, fondly gazing on her charms,
Reflor'd the pleafing burden to her arms:
Soft on her fragrant breaft the babe fhe laid,
Hufh'd to repofe, and with a smile survey❜d.

The