So ladies in romance assist their knight,
Present the spear, and arm him for the fight.
He takes the gift with reverence, and extends
The little engine on his fingers' ends;

This just behind Belinda's neck he spread,
As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head.
Swift to the lock a thousand sprites repair,

A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair;
And thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear:
Thrice she looked back, and thrice the foe drew near.
Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought
The close recesses of the Virgin's thought:
As, on the nosegay in her breast reclined,
He watched th' ideas rising in her mind,
Sudden he viewed, in spite of all her art,
An earthly lover lurking at her heart.
Amazed, confused, he found his power expired,
Resigned to fate, and with a sigh retired.

The peer now spreads the glitt'ring forfex wide,
T' inclose the lock; now joins it, to divide.
Even then, before the fatal engine closed,

A wretched sylph too fondly interposed;

Fate urged the shears, and cut the sylph in twain
(But airy substance soon unites again).
The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, for ever and for ever!

Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes,
And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.
Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast
When husbands, or when lap-dogs, breathe their last;
Or when rich China vessels, fallen from high,

In glittering dust and painted fragments lie!

"Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine" (The victor cried): "the glorious prize is mine! While fish in streams, or birds delight in air,

Or in a coach and six the British fair,

As long as Atalantis shall be read,

Or the small pillow grace a lady's bed,

While visits shall be paid on solemn days,
When numerous wax-lights in bright order blaze,
While nymphs take treats, or assignations give,
So long my honor, name, and praise shall live!"

What time would spare, from steel receives its date, And monuments, like men, submit to fate!

Steel could the labor of the gods destroy,

And strike to dust th' imperial towers of Troy;
Steel could the works of mortal pride confound,

And hew triumphal arches to the ground.

What wonder then, fair nymph! thy hairs should feel
The conquering force of unresisted steel?

H

FROM THE ESSAY ON MAN>

EAVEN from all creatures hides the book of Fate,

All but the page prescribed, their present state;

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:

Or who could suffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To Be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind:
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or Milky Way:
Yet simple Nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven;
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural desire;

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;