University of Virginia Library

PHÆDRA AND NURSE.

Nurse
Oh ills of life! relentless train
Of sickness, tears, and wasting pain!
Where shall I turn? what succour claim
To warm with health thy failing frame?
Thy couch, by which so long we mourn,
Forth from the palace doors is borne:
Turn on these scenes thy languid sight,
That breathe of life, and smile in light.
But now thy every wish was given
To draw the ethereal breeze of heaven:
Soon will thy fancy's wandering train
Recall the chamber's gloom again.
Charmless all present objects seem:
The absent fill thy feverish dream:
Thy half-formed thoughts new thoughts destroy,
Nor leave one transient pause of joy.
Yet better feel the sharpest pains,
That rend the nerves and scorch the veins,
Than the long watch of misery prove
By the sick couch of those we love.
In the worst pangs to sickness known
Corporeal sufferance reigns alone;
The double pangs our vigils share
Of manual toil and mental care.
The days of man in misery flow:
No rest from toils and tears we know:
The happier slumbers of the tomb
Are wrapped in clouds, and veiled in gloom.
And hence our abject spirits shrink
From pressing that oblivious brink,
Still fondly lingering to survey
The radiance of terrestrial day,
Through fear that fate's unpitying breath
May burst the deep repose of death,
And ignorance of those paths of dread
Which no returning step may tread.
We trace the mystic legends old
That many a dreaming bard has told,
And hear, half-doubting, half-deceived,
The songs our simpler sires believed.

Phædra
Give me your hands. My strength has fled.
Uplift my frame. Support my head.
Unclasp the bands that bind my hair,
A weight I have not power to bear,
And let my loosened tresses flow
Freely on all the winds that blow.

Nurse
My child, let hope thy bosom warm:
Convulse not thus thy sickly form:
Thy mind let tranquil virtue steel
To bear the ills that all must feel,
Since human wisdom shuns in vain
The sad necessity of pain.

Phædra
Oh place me in some flowery glade,
Beneath the poplar's murmuring shade,
Where many a dewy fountain flings
The treasures of its crystal springs:
There let me draw, in transient rest,
A draught to cool my burning breast.

Nurse
Alas! what words are these, my child?
Oh breathe not strains so sadly wild,
That seem with phrensy's tints imbued,
Before the listening multitude.

Phædra
Oh! bear me to those heights divine,
Where wild winds bend the mountain-pine,
Where to the dog's melodious cry
The rocks and caverned glens reply.
By heaven, I long to grasp the spear,
Hang on the track of flying deer,
Shout to the dogs, as fast we sweep
Tumultuous down the sylvan steep,
And hurl along the tainted air
The javelin from my streaming hair.

Nurse
Alas! what may these visions be?
What are the dogs and woods to thee?
Why is it thus thy fancy roves
To lonely springs and cypress groves,
When here the hanging rock distills
Its everlasting crystal rills?

Phædra
Goddess of Limna's sandy bounds,
Where many a courser's hoof resounds!
Would I were on thy field of fame,
Conspicuous in the equestrian game.

Nurse
Still from thy lips such strains depart,
As thrill with pain my aged heart.
Now on the mountain-heights afar
You long to urge the sylvan war;
Now on the billow-bordering sand
To guide the rein with desperate hand.
What gifted mind's mysterious skill
Shall say whence springs thy secret ill?
For sure some god's malignant sway
Turns thee from reason's paths away.

Phædra
Where has my darkened fancy strayed?
What has my rash delirium said?
How lost, alas! how fallen am I
Beneath some adverse deity!
Nurse, veil my head. The dream is past.
My mournful eyes on earth I cast:
The thoughts I breathed my memory rend,
And tears of grief and shame descend.
Sad is the change when reason's light
Bursts on the waste of mental night.
Severe the pangs of phrensy's hour:
But, when we feel its scorpion power,
Oh might the illusion never fly!
For 'twere some blessing so to die,
Ere yet returning sense could shew
The dire reality of woe.

Nurse
I veil thee.. When shall death so spread
His veil around my weary head?
Truths, oft by sages sought in vain,
Long life and sad experience gain.
Let not the children of mankind
Affection's bonds too closely bind,
But let the heart unshackled prove
The links of dissoluble love.
Loose be those links, and lightly held;
With ease compressed, with ease repelled;
More tender ties the health destroy,
And bring long grief for transient joy.
Ill may one feeble spirit bear,
When double feelings claim its care,
The pangs that in the heart concur,
Such pangs, as now I feel for her.
For love, like riches, in excess,
Has more the power to curse than bless:
And wisdom turns from passion's strife,
To seek the golden mean of life.