TO A FRIEND UNSUCCESSFUL IN LOVE.1
INDEED, my Phædria, if to find
That wealth can female wishes gain, Had e'er disturb'd your thoughtful mind, Or caused one serious moment's pain, I should have said that all the rules, You learned of moralists and schools, Were very useless, very vain.
Yet I perhaps mistake the case- Say, though with this heroic air, Like one that holds a nobler chase, You try the tender loss to bear;
Does not your heart renounce your tongue? Seems not my censure strangely wrong To count it such a slight affair?
When Hesper gilds the shaded sky, Oft as you seek the well-known grove, Methinks I see you cast your eye Back to the morning scenes of love: Each pleasing word you heard her say, Her gentle look, her graceful way, Again your struggling fancy move.
Then tell me, is your soul entire ? Does Wisdom calmly hold her throne? Then can you question each desire, Bid this remain, and that begone? No tear half-starting from your eye? No kindling blush you know not why? No stealing sigh, nor stifled groan ?
1 Phædria is supposed to indicate Thomas Edwards, the author of the "Canons," of whose disappointed attachment we catch a glimpse in a sonnet (xiii.) to his friend Mr. Wray, written during the pains of sickness, which he found easy, he declares,
"If weighed with those that rack'd my tortur'd breast When my fond heart from Amoret was torn ;
So true that word of Solomon I find,
No pain so grievous as a wounded mind."-W.
Away with this unmanly mood! See where the hoary churl appears, Whose hand hath seiz'd the favourite good Which you reserv'd for happier years : While, side by side, the blushing maid Shrinks from his visage, half afraid, Spite of the sickly joy she wears.
Ye guardian powers of love and fame, This chaste, harmonious pair behold; And thus reward the generous flame Of all who barter vows for gold. O bloom of youth, O tender charms Well-buried in a dotard's arms! O equal price of beauty sold!
Cease then to gaze with looks of love: Bid her adieu, the venal fair: Unworthy she your bliss to prove ; Then wherefore should she prove your care? No: lay your myrtle garland down; And let awhile the willow's crown With luckier omens bind your hair.
O just escap'd the faithless main, Though driven unwilling on the land; To guide your favour'd steps again, Behold your better Genius stand : Where Truth revolves her page divine, Where Virtue leads to Honour's shrine, Behold, he lifts his awful hand.
Fix but on these your ruling aim, And Time, the sire of manly care, Will fancy's dazzling colours tame; A soberer dress will beauty wear: Then shall esteem, by knowledge led, Inthrone within your heart and head Some happier love, some truer fair.
AFFECTED INDIFFERENCE.-TO THE SAME.
YES: you contemn the perjur'd maid Who all your favourite hopes betray'd: Nor, though her heart should home return, Her tuneful tongue its falsehood mourn, Her winning eyes your faith implore, Would you her hand receive again, Or once dissemble your disdain, Or listen to the syren's theme,
Or stoop to love: since now esteem And confidence, and friendship, is no more.
Yet tell me, Phædria, tell me why, When summoning your pride you try To meet her looks with cool neglect, Or cross her walk with slight respect, (For so is falsehood best repaid) Whence do your cheeks indignant glow? Why is your struggling tongue so slow? What means that darkness on your brow? As if with all her broken vow
You meant the fair apostate to upbraid?
Oн fly! 'tis dire Suspicion's mien ; And meditating plagues unseen, The sorceress hither bends; Behold her torch in gall imbrued: Behold-her garment drops with blood Of lovers and of friends.
1 Warton, speaking of Pope's verses "On an Unfortunate Lady,” remarks that the elegy opens with a striking abruptness, and a strong image; the poet fancies he beholds suddenly the phantom of his murdered friend,
"What beck'ning ghost," &c.
This question alarms the reader. Akenside has begun one of his odes in the like manner :"O fly! 'tis dire Suspicion's mien."
Essay on Pope, i. 247. According to Mr. Bucke, the poet had a friend who felt unjustly jealous of his wife, and applied to Akenside for advice. The Ode was the answer.-W.
Fly far! Already in your eyes I see a pale suffusion rise;
And soon through every vein, Soon will her secret venom spread, And all your heart and all your head Imbibe the potent stain.
Then many a demon will she raise To vex your sleep, to haunt your ways; While gleams of lost delight
Raise the dark tempest of the brain, As lightning shines across the main Through whirlwinds and through night.
No more can faith or candour move; But each ingenuous deed of love, Which reason would applaud, Now, smiling o'er her dark distress, Fancy malignant strives to dress Like injury and fraud.
Farewell to virtue's peaceful times: Soon will you stoop to act the crimes Which thus you stoop to fear: Guilt follows guilt: and where the train Begins with wrongs of such a stain, What horrors form the rear!
"Tis thus to work her baleful power,1 Suspicion waits the sullen hour Of fretfulness and strife, When care the infirmer bosom wrings, Or Eurus waves his murky wings To damp the seats of life.
But come, forsake the scene unbless'd Which first beheld your faithful breast To groundless fears a prey : Come, where with my prevailing lyre The skies, the streams, the groves conspire
To charm your doubts away.
1 "There is a passage in one of the Odes of Akenside, in which a scene, which is in general only beautiful, is rendered strikingly sublime, from the imagery with which it is associated.”—ALISON-On Taste, i., p. 30.-W.
Thron'd in the sun's descending car, What power unseen diffuseth far This tenderness of mind?
What Genius smiles on yonder flood? What God, in whispers from the wood, Bids every thought be kind?
O thou, whate'er thy awful name, Whose wisdom our untoward frame With social love restrains; Thou, who by fair affection's ties Giv'st us to double all our joys, And half disarm our pains;
Let universal candour still, Clear as yon heaven-reflecting rill, Preserve my open mind;
Nor this nor that man's crooked ways One sordid doubt within me raise To injure human kind.1
How thick the shades of evening close! How pale the sky with weight of snows! Haste, light the tapers, urge the fire,2 And bid the joyless day retire.
-Alas, in vain I try within
To brighten the dejected scene,
1 The editor of the American edition inserts the following stanza, found
in a copy presented by the Poet :
"If far from Dyson and from me Suspicion took, by thy decree,
Her everlasting flight;
If firm on virtue's ample base
Thy parent hand has deign'd to raise
Our friendship's honour'd height."-W.
2 Horace Walpole, writing to Sir Horace Mann, informs him that among "the tame geniuses" of the day is "a Mr. Akenside, who writes odes; in one he has lately published he says, Light the tapers, urge the fire.' you not rather make gods jostle in the dark, than light the candles for fear they should break their heads."-W.
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