The Third Volume of the Works of Mr. William Congreve containing Poems upon Several Occasions |
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Hecuba's Lamentation.
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 | The Third Volume of the Works of Mr. William Congreve |  |
Hecuba's Lamentation.
Hector, my Joy, and to my Soul more dear
Than all my other num'rous Issue were;
O my last Comfort, and my best Belov'd!
Thou, at whose Fall, ev'n Jove himself was mov'd,
And sent a God his dread Commands to bear,
So far thou wert high Heav'n's peculiar Care!
From fierce Achilles' Chains thy Corps was freed;
So kind a Fate was for none else decreed:
My other Sons, made Pris'ners by his Hands,
Were sold like Slaves, and shipt to foreign Lands.
Thou too wert sentenc'd by his barb'rous Doom,
And dragg'd, when dead, about Patroclus Tomb,
His lov'd Patroclus, whom thy Hands had slain;
And yet that Cruelty was urg'd in vain,
Since all could not restore his Life again.
Now fresh and glowing, even in Death thou art,
And fair as he who fell by Phœbus' Dart.
Than all my other num'rous Issue were;
O my last Comfort, and my best Belov'd!
Thou, at whose Fall, ev'n Jove himself was mov'd,
And sent a God his dread Commands to bear,
So far thou wert high Heav'n's peculiar Care!
From fierce Achilles' Chains thy Corps was freed;
So kind a Fate was for none else decreed:
My other Sons, made Pris'ners by his Hands,
Were sold like Slaves, and shipt to foreign Lands.
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And dragg'd, when dead, about Patroclus Tomb,
His lov'd Patroclus, whom thy Hands had slain;
And yet that Cruelty was urg'd in vain,
Since all could not restore his Life again.
Now fresh and glowing, even in Death thou art,
And fair as he who fell by Phœbus' Dart.
Here weeping Hecuba her Passion stay'd,
And Universal Moan again was made;
When Helen's Lamentation hers supply'd,
And thus, aloud, that fatal Beauty cry'd.
And Universal Moan again was made;
When Helen's Lamentation hers supply'd,
And thus, aloud, that fatal Beauty cry'd.
| The Third Volume of the Works of Mr. William Congreve | |