University of Virginia Library

PITY;

AN ALLEGORY, VERSIFIED.

In that blest age when never care annoy'd,
Nor mortals' peace by discord was destroy'd,
A happy pair descended from above,
And gods and mortals nam'd them Joy and Love.
Together had they seen each opening day,
Together shar'd each sportive infant play;
In riper years with glowing warmth they lov'd;
Jove saw their passion and his nod approv'd.
Long happy did they live, when cruel fate
From bliss to misery chang'd their envied state.
Mankind grew wicked and the gods severe,
And Jove's dread anger shook the trembling sphere.
To Joy he sent his high behest to fly
On silken pinions to her native sky.
Reluctant she obeys, but Love remains,
By Hope his nurse, led to Arcadia's plains:
When from his starry throne, the mighty Jove
In thunder spoke: “Let Sorrow wed to Love!”
The awful stern command Love trembling hears;
Sorrow was haggard, pale, and worn with tears,
Her hollow eyes and pallid cheeks confest,
That hapless misery “knows not where to rest.”
Forc'd to submit, Love's efforts were in vain;
The thunderer's word must ever firm remain.
No nymphs and swains to grace the nuptial day
Approach, no smiling Cupids round them play;
No festal dance was there, no husband's pride,
For Love in sadness met his joyless bride.
One child, one tender girl, to Love she bore,
Who all her father's pensive beauty wore;
So soft her aspect, the Arcadian swains
Had nam'd her Pity—and her name remains.
In early youth for others' woe she felt;
Adversity had taught her how to melt.
Love's myrtle, Sorrow's cypress she combin'd,
And form'd a wreath which round her forehead twin'd.
She oft sat musing in Arcadia's shades,
And play'd her lute to charm the native maids.
A ring-dove flew for safety to her breast;
A robin in her cottage built its nest.
Her mother's steps she follows close; to bind
Those wounds her mother made: divinely kind,
Into each troubled heart she pours her balm,
And brings the mind a transitory calm.
But both are mortal; and when fades the earth,
The nymph shall die, with her who gave her birth;
Then, to elysium Love shall wing his flight,
And he and Joy for ever re-unite.