The poems of Dr. Yalden :: :: University of Virginia Library

What raging thoughts transport the woman's breast,
That is with love and jealousy possest!
More with revenge, than soft desires she burns,
Whose slighted passion meets no kind returns;
That courts the youth with long-neglected charms,
And finds her rival happy in his arms!

Dread Scylla's rocks 'tis safer to engage,
And trust a storm, than her destructive rage:
Not waves, contending with a boisterous wind,
Threaten so loud, as her tempestuous mind:
For seas grow calm, and raging storms abate,
But most implacable's a woman's hate:

Tigers and savages less wild appear,
Than that fond wretch abandon'd to despair.

Such were the transports Dejanira felt,
Stung with a rival's charms, and husband's guilt:
With such despair she view'd the captive maid,
Whose fatal love her Hercules betray'd;
Th' unchaste Iöle, but divinely fair!
In love triumphant, though a slave in war;
By nature lewd, and form'd for soft delight,
Gay as the spring, and fair as beams of light;
Whose blooming youth would wildest rage disarm,
And every eye, but a fierce rival's, charm.

Fix'd with her grief the royal matron stood,
When the fair captive in his arms she view'd:
With what regret her beauties she survey'd,
And curst the power of the too lovely maid,
That reap'd the joys of her abandon'd bed!
Her furious looks with wild disorder glow,
Looks that her envy and resentment show!
To blast that fair detested form she tries,
And lightning darts from her distorted eyes.

Then o'er the palace of false Hercules,
With clamour and impetuous rage she flies;
Late a dear witness of their mutual flame,
But now th' unhappy object of her shame;
Whose conscious roof can yield her no relief,
But with polluted joys upbraids her grief.

Nor can the spacious court contain her now;
It grows a scene too narrow for her woe.
Loose and undrest all day she strays alone,
Does her abode and lov'd companions shun.
In woods complains, and sighs in every grove,
The mournful tale of her forsaken love.
Her thoughts to all th' extremes of frenzy fly,
Vary, but cannot ease her misery:
Whilst in her looks the lively forms appear,
Of envy, fondness, fury, and despair.

Her rage no constant face of sorrow wears,
Oft scornful smiles succeed loud sighs and tears;
Oft o'er her face the rising blushes spread,
Her glowing eyeballs turn with fury red:
Then pale and wan her alter'd looks appear,
Paler than Guilt, and drooping with despair.
A tide of passions ebb and flow within,
And oft she shifts the melancholy scene:
Does all th' excess of woman's fury show,
And yields a large variety of woe.

Now, calm as infants at the mother's breast,
Her grief in softest murmurs is exprest:
She speaks the tenderest things that pity move,
Kind are her looks, and languishing with love.
Then, loud as storms, and raging as the wind,
She gives a loose to her distemper'd mind:
With shrieks and groans she fills the air around,
And makes the palace her loud griefs resound,

Wild with her wrongs, she like a fury strays,
A fury, more than wife of Hercules:
Her motion, looks, and voice, proclaim her woes;
While sighs, and broken words, her wilder thoughts disclose.