Madrigal And Trulletta :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Street.
Madrigal.
Thus far into the bowels of this street
We've march'd without impediment—O night!
Alternate regent of the lapsing hours,
Sister of chaos, e'er the upstart sun
And world had being, thou, with sable sway,
Didst rule the uncreated mass of things.

What golden 'vantage from thine eyeless reign
To mortals flow! beneath thy friendly veil
The meagre bard oft 'scapes the prying ken
Of lurking catchpole, and eludes the touch
Unhallow'd. City prigs, of sober seeming,
Quaff their nocturnal beverige, and reel
Unnotic'd home. The painted courtezan,
Who with her quartern, and the liquid food
Of Indian shrub, repels the keen attacks
Of raging hunger, all the live long day,
Now in full blazon, with alluring leer,
Patroles the slippery streets—the—but that lovely vision
[Trulletta appears at the window.
Forbids all further simile—she beckons—
He comes, Trulletta: most refulgent maid,
Thy Madrigal—with hasty strides he comes—
Now, would the sun, in his meridian glare,
Suffer eclipse from her more radiant eyes.

Thus far into the bowels of this land
We've march'd without impediment.

K. Richard III.

This invocation to night is certainly one of the sublimest pieces that ever was written. Dr. Humbug.

Didst rule the uncreated mass of things.

Paradise Lost.

This image seems to be borrow'd from that ingenious poem, the Splendid Shilling.

The comparison of ladies' eyes with the sun is very frequent in tragedy. Among numberless passages of this kind, that of Rowe is not the least poetical, viz.

Those eyes, which could his own fair beams decay,
Might shine for him, and bless the world with day.

Amb. Step.

but the thought of our heroine's eyes eclipsing the sun, is certainly a more striking, and sublime allusion, than ever was yet met with on the subject of eyes.

Dr. Humbug.