University of Virginia Library

A Lady, like to Juno in her state,
Upon the air her golden tresses streaming,
And with celestial eyes of azure beaming,
Entered whilere my gate.
Like a Barbaric Queen
On the Euphrates' shore,
In purple and fine linen was she pall'd,
Nor flower nor laurel green,
Her tresses for their garland wore
The splendour of the Indian emerald.
But through the rigid pride and pomp unbending
Of beauty and of haughtiness,
Sparkled a flattery sweet and condescending;
And from her inmost bosom sent,
Came accents of most wonderous gentleness,
Officious and intent
To thrall my soul in soft imprisonment.

And, “place,” she said, “thy hand within my hair,
And all around thou'lt see
Delightful chances fair
On golden feet come dancing unto thee.
Me Jove's daughter shalt thou own,
That with my sister Fate
Sits by his side in state
On the eternal throne.
Great Neptune to my will the ocean gives;
In vain, in well appointed strength secure,
The Indian and the Briton strives
The assaulting billows to endure;
Unless their flying sails I guide
Where over the smooth tide
On my sweet spirit's wings I ride.
I banish to their bound
The storms of dismal sound,
And o'er them take my stand with foot serene;
The Æolian caverns under
The wings of the rude winds I chain,
And with my hand I burst asunder
The fiery chariot wheels of the hurricane:
And in its fount the horrid restless fire
I quench, ere it aspire
To Heaven to colour the red Comet's train.

This is the hand that forged on Ganges' shore
The Indians' empire; by Orontes set
The royal tiar the Assyrian wore;
Hung jewels on the brow of Babylon,
By Tigris wreath'd the Persian's coronet,
And at the Macedonian's foot bow'd every throne.
It was my lavish gift,
The triumph and the song
Around the youth of Pella loud uplift,
When he through Asia swept along,
A torrent swift and strong;
With me, with me the Conqueror ran
To where the Sun his golden course began;
And the high Monarch left on earth
A faith unquestion'd of his heavenly birth;
By valour mingled with the Gods above,
And made a glory of himself to his great Father Jove.

My royal spirits oft
Their solemn mystic round
On Rome's great birth-day wound:
And I the haughty Eagles sprung aloft
Unto the Star of Mars upborne,
Till, poising on their plumy sails,
They 'gan their native vales
And Sabine palms to scorn:
And I on the seven hills to sway
That Senate House of Kings convened,
On me their guide and stay
Ever the Roman councils lean'd
In danger's lofty way.
I guerdoned the wise delay
Of Fabius with the laurel crown,
And hot Marcellus' fiercer battle tone;
And I on the Tarpeian did deliver
Afric a captive, and through me Nile flow'd
Under the laws of the great Latin river;
And of his bow and quiver
The Parthian rear'd a trophy high and broad:
The Dacian's fierce inroad
Against the gates of iron broke,
Taurus and Caucasus endured my yoke:
Then my vassal and my slave
Did every native land of every wind become,
And when I had o'ercome
All earth beneath my feet, I gave
The vanquished world in one great gift to Rome.

I know that in thine high imagination,
Other daughters of Great Jove
Have taken their Imperial station,
And queen-like thy submissive passions move;
From them thou hop'st a high and god-like fate,
From them thy haughty verse presages
An everlasting sway o'er distant ages,
And with their glorious rages
Thy mind intoxicate,
Deems 'tis in triumphal motion,
On courser fleet, or winged bark,
Over earth and over ocean;
While in shepherd hamlet dark
Thou liv'st, with want within, and raiment coarse without;
And none upon thy state hath thrown
Gentle regard; I, I alone
To new and lofty venture call thee out;
Then follow, thus besought,
Waste not thy soul in thought;
Brooks nor sloth nor lingering
The great moment on the wing.

“A blissful lady and immortal, born
From the eternal mind of Deity,
(I answer'd, bold and free,)
My soul hath in her queenly care;
She mine imagination doth upbear,
And steeps it in the light of her rich morn,
That overshades and sicklies all thy shining;
And though my lowly hair
Presume not to bright crowns of thy entwining,
Yet in my mind I bear
Gifts nobler and more rare
Than the kingdoms thou canst lavish,
Gifts thou canst nor give nor ravish:
And though my spirit may not comprehend
Thy chances bright and fair,
Yet neither doth her sight offend
The aspect pale of miserable care:
Horror to her is not
Of this coarse raiment, and this humble cot;
She with the golden Muses doth abide,
And oh! the darling children of thy pride
Shall then be truly glorified,
When they may merit to be wrapt around
With my Poesy's eternal sound.”

She kindled at my words and flamed, as when
A cruel star hath wide dispread
Its locks of bloody red,
She burst in wrathful menace then:
“Me fears the Dacian, me the band
Of wandering Scythians fears,
Me the rough mothers of Barbaric kings;
In woe and dread amid the rings
Of their encircling spears
The purple tyrants stand;
And a shepherd here forlorn
Treats my proffered boons with scorn.
And fears he not my wrath?
And knows he not my works of scathe;
Nor how with angry foot I went,
Of every province in the Orient
Branding the bosom with deep tracks of death?
From three Empresses I rent
The tresses and imperial wreath,
And bar'd them to the pitiless element.
Well I remember when his armed grasp
From Asia stretch'd, rash Xerxes took his stand
Upon the formidable bridge to clasp
And manacle sad Europe's trembling hand:
In the great day of battle there was I,
Busy with myriads of the Persian slaughter,
The Salaminian sea's fair face to dye,
That yet admires its dark and bloody water;
Full vengeance wreak'd I for the affront
Done Neptune at the fetter'd Hellespont.

To the Nile then did I go,
The fatal collar wound
The fair neck of the Egyptian Queen around;
And I the merciless poison made to flow
Into her breast of snow.
Ere that within the mined cave,
I forced dark Afric's valour stoop
Confounded, and its dauntless spirit droop,
When to the Carthaginian brave,
With mine own hand, the hemlock draught I gave.

And Rome through me the ravenous flame
In the heart of her great rival, Carthage, cast,
That went through Lybia wandering, a scorn'd shade,
Till, sunk to equal shame,
Her mighty enemy at last
A shape of mockery was made:
Then miserably pleased,
Her fierce and ancient vengeance she appeased;
And even drew a sigh
Over the ruins vast
Of the deep-hated Latin majesty.
I will not call to mind the horrid sword
Upon the Memphian shore,
Steep'd treasonously in great Pompey's gore;
Nor that for rigid Cato's death abhorr'd;
Nor that which in the hand of Brutus wore
The first deep colouring of a Cæsar's blood.
Nor will I honour thee with my high mood
Of wrath, that kingdoms doth exterminate;
Incapable art thou of my great hate,
As my great glories. Therefore shall be thine
Of my revenge a slighter sign;
Yet will I make its fearful sound
Hoarse and slow rebound,
Till seem the gentle pipings low,
To equal the fierce trumpet's brazen glow.”

Then sprung she on her flight,
Furious, and at her call,
Upon my cottage did the storms alight,
Did hurricanes and thunders fall.
But I, with brow serene,
Beheld the angry hail
And lightning flashing pale,
Devour the promise green
Of my poor native vale.