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Strikes his sad eye, but deserts lost in snow;
And heavy-loaded groves; and solid floods,
That stretch, athwart the solitary vast,
Their icy horrors to the frozen main;
And cheerless towns far distant, never bless'd,
Save when its annual course the caravan
Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay,*
With news of humankind. Yet there life glows;
Yet cherish'd there, beneath the shining waste,
The furry nations harbour: tipt with jet,
Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press;
Sables, of glossy black; and dark embrown'd,
Or beauteous freak'd with many a mingled hue,
Thousands besides, the costly pride of courts.
There, warm together press'd, the trooping deer
Sleep on the new-fall'n snows; and, scarce his head
Rais'd o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk
Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss.
The ruthless hunter wants not dogs nor toils,
Nor with the dread of sounding bows he drives
The fearful flying race; with ponderous clubs,
As weak against the mountain heaps they push
Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray,
He lays them quivering on th' ensanguin'd snows,
And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home.
There through the piny forest half-absorpt,
Rough tenant of these shades, the shapeless bear,
With dangling ice all horrid, stalks forlorn ;
Slow-pac'd, and sourer as the storms increase,
He makes his bed beneath th' inclement drift,
And, with stern patience, scorning weak complaint,
Hardens his heart against assailing want.

Wide o'er the spacious regions of the north,
That see Bootes urge his tardy wain,
A boisterous race, by frosty Caurus+ pierc'd,
Who little pleasure know and fear no pain,
Prolific swarm. They once relum'd the flame *
Of lost mankind in polish'd slavery sunk,
Drove martial horde on horde, with dreadful sweep
Resistless rushing o'er th' enfeebled south,
And gave the vanquish'd world another form.
Not such the sons of Lapland wisely they
Despise th' insensate barbarous trade of war;
They ask no more than simple Nature gives,
They love their mountains and enjoy their storms.
No false desires, no pride-created wants,
Disturb the peaceful current of their time;
And through the restless ever-tortur'd maze
Of pleasure, or ambition, bid it rage.
Their rein-deer form their riches. These their tents,
Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth
Supply, their wholesome fare, and cheerful cups.
Obsequious at their call, the docile tribe
Yield to the sled their necks, and whirl them swift,
O'er hill and dale, heap'd into one expanse
Of marbled snow, as far as eye can sweep
With a blue crust of ice unbounded glaz❜d.
By dancing meteors then, that ceaseless shake
A waving blaze refracted o'er the heavens,
And vivid moons and stars that keener play
With doubled lustre from the glossy waste,
Even in the depth of polar night, they find
A wondrous day: enough to light the chase,
Or guide their daring steps to Finland fairs.
Wish'd Spring returns; and, from the hazy south,
While dim Aurora slowly moves before,
The welcome sun, just verging up at first,
By small degrees extends the swelling curve;
Till seen at last for gay rejoicing months,
Still round and round his spiral course he winds;
And as he nearly dips his flaming orb,

The old name of China.
+ The north-west wind.
The wandering Scythian clans.

Wheels up again, and re-ascends the sky.
In that glad season, from the lakes and floods,
Where pure Niemi's fairy mountains rise,
And fring'd with roses Tenglio + rolls his stream,
They draw the copious fry. With these, at eve,
They cheerful loaded to their tents repair;
Where, all day long in useful cares employ'd,
Their kind unblemish'd wives the fire prepare.
Thrice happy race! by poverty secur'd
From legal plunder and rapacious power:
In whom fell int'rest never yet has sown

The seeds of vice: whose spotless swains ne'er knew
Injurious deed, nor, blasted by the breath
Of faithless love, their blooming daughters woe.
Still pressing on beyond Tornea's lake,
And Hecla flaming through a waste of snow,
And furthest Greenland, to the pole itself,
Where, failing gradual, life at length goes out,
The Muse expands her solitary flight;
And, hov'ring o'er the wild stupendous scene,
Beholds new seas beneath another sky.
Thron'd in his palace of cerulean ice,.
Here Winter holds his unrejoicing court;
And through his airy hall the loud misrule
Of driving tempest is for ever heard:
Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath:
Here arms his winds with all-subduing frost;
Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his snows,
With which he now oppresses half the globe.

Thence winding eastward to the Tartar's coast,
She sweeps the howling margin of the main;
Where undissolving, from the first of time,
Snows swell on snows amazing to the sky;
And icy mountains high on mountains pil'd,
Seem to the shivering sailor from afar,
Shapeless and white, an atmosphere of clouds.
Projected huge, and horrid o'er the surge,
Alps frown on Alps; or rushing hideous down,
As if old Chaos was again return'd,

Wide rends the deep, and shake the solid pole.
Ocean itself no longer can resist

The binding fury; but, in all its rage

Of tempest taken by the boundless frost,

Is many a fathom to the bottom chain'd,
And bid to roar no more: a bleak expanse,
Shagg'd o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless and void
Of every life, that from the dreary months
Flies conscious southward. Miserable they!
Who, here entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun;
While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost,
The long long night, incumbent o'er their heads,
Falls horrible. Such was the Briton's fate
As with first prow (what have not Briton's dar'd ?)
He for the passage sought, attempted since

So much in vain, and seeming to be shut

By jealous Nature with eternal bars.
In these fell regions, in Arzina caught,
And to the stony deep his idle ship
Immediate seal'd, he with his hapless crew,

*M. de Maupertuis, in his book on the figure of the earth, after having described the beautiful lake and mountain of Niemi, in Lapland, says, "From this height we had opportunity several times to see those vapours rise from the lake which the people of the country call Haltios, and which they deem to be the guardian spirits of the mountains. We had been frightened with stories of bears that haunted this place, but saw none. It seemed rather a place of resort for faries and genii, than bears."

The same author observes, "I was surprised to see upon the banks of this river (the Tenglio) roses of as lively a red as any that are in our gardens."

The other hemisphere.

§ Sir Hugh Willoughby, sent by Queen Elizabeth to discover the north-east-passage.

Each full exerted at his several task, Froze into statues; to the cordage glued The sailor, and the pilot to the helm.

But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave. And, hark! the lengthening roar continuous runs Athwart the rifted deep: at once it bursts,

Hard by these shores, where scarce his freezing And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds.

stream

Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of men

And half enliven'd by the distant sun,
That rears and ripens man, as well as plants,
Here human nature wears its rudest form.
Deep from the piercing season sunk in caves,
Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer,
They waste their tedious gloom. Immers'd in furs,
Doze the gross race. Nor sprightly jest, nor song,
Nor tenderness they know; nor aught of life,
Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without.
Till morn at length, her roses drooping all,
Sheds a long twilight brightening o'er their fields,
And calls the quivering savage to the chase.
What cannot active government perform,
New-moulding man! Wide-stretching from these

shores,

A people savage from remotest time,
A huge neglected empire, one vast mind,
By Heaven inspir'd, from gothic darkness call'd.
Immortal Peter! first of monarchs! he

His stubborn country tam'd, her rocks, her fens,
Her floods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons;
And while the fierce barbarian he subdu'd,
To more exalted soul he rais'd the man.
Ye shades of ancient heroes, ye who toil'd
Through long successive ages to build up
A labouring plan of state, behold at once
The wonder done! behold the matchless prince
Who left his native throne, where reign'd till then
A mighty shadow of unreal power;

Who greatly spurn'd the slothful pomp of courts;
And roaming every land, and every port,
His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand
Unwearied plying the mechanic tool,
Gather'd the seeds of trade, of useful arts,
Of civil wisdom, and of martial skill.

Charg'd with the stores of Europe home he goes;
Then cities rise amid th' illumin'd waste;
O'er joyless deserts smiles the rural reign;
Far-distant flood to flood is social join'd;
Th' astonish'd Euxine hears the Baltic roar;
Proud navies ride on seas that never foam'd
With daring keel before; and armies stretch
Each
their dazzling files, repressing here
way
The frantic Alexander of the north,

And awing there stern Othman's shrinking sons.
Sloth flies the land, and ignorance, and vice,
Of old dishonour proud: it glows around,
Taught by the royal hand that rous'd the whole,
One scene of arts, of arms, of rising trade:
For what his wisdom plann'd, and power enforc❜d,
More potent still, his great example shew'd.
Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point,
Blow hollow blustering from the south. Subdu'd,
The frost resolves into a trickling thaw.
Spotted the mountains shine; loose sleet descends,
And floods the country round. The rivers swell,
Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills,
O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts,
A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once:
And, where they rush, the wide-resounding plain
Is left one slimy waste. Those sullen seas,
That wash'd th' ungenial pole, will rest no more
Beneath the shackles of the mighty north;

Ill fares the bark with trembling wretches charg'd, That, toss'd amid the floating fragments, moors Beneath the shelter of an icy isle,

While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror looks
More horrible. Can human force endure

Th' assembled mischiefs that besiege them round?
Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness,
The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice,
Now ceasing, now renew'd with louder rage,
And in dire echoes bellowing round the main.
More to embroil the deep, Leviathan

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And his unwieldy train, in dreadful sport,
Tempest the loosen'd brine, while through the gloom,
Far from the bleak inhospitable shore,
Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl
Of famish'd monsters there awaiting wrecks.
Yet Providence, that ever-waking eye,
Looks down with pity on the feeble toil
Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe,
Through all this dreary labyrinth of fate.

'Tis done! dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year. How dead the vegetable kingdom Jies!

How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends

His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!

See here thy pictur'd life! Pass some few years,
Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength,
Thy sober Autumn fading into age,

And pale concluding Winter comes at last,
And shuts the scene.

Ah! whither now are fled
Those dreams of greatness? those unsolid hopes
Of happiness? those longings after fame?
Those restless cares? those busy bustling days?
Those gay-spent festive nights? those veering thoughts,
Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life?
All now are vanish'd! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal never-failing friend of man,
His guide to happiness on high. And see!
'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth
Of heaven and earth! Awakening Nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life,
In every heighten'd form, from pain and death
For ever free. The great eternal scheme,
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads,
To reason's eye refin'd clears up apace.
Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now,
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power,
And Wisdom oft arraign'd; see now the cause,
Why unassuming worth in secret liv'd,
And died neglected: why the good man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul:
Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd
In starving solitude; while luxury,
In palaces, lay straining her low thought,
To form unreal wants: why heaven-born truth,
And moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of superstition's scourge: why licens'd pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe,
Embitter'd all our bliss. Ye good distrest!
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up awhile,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil, is no more:
The storms of wintry Time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.

62

HYMN.

THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm ;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart is joy.
Then comes Thy glory in the Summer-months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year:
And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks:
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfin'd,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter, awful Thou! with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing,
Riding sublime, Thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest Nature with Thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combin❜d;
Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole;
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ;
Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.

Nature, attend! join, every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky;
In adoration join; and, ardent, raise
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes;
Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms,
Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely-waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,
Who shake th' astonish'd world, lift high to heaven
Th' impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid, and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound his stupendous praise; whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to Him; whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to Him;

Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On Nature write with every beam His praise.
The thunder rolls! be hush'd the prostrate world!
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn,
Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound: the broad responsive low,
Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns;
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song
Burst from the groves! and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm

The listening shades, and teach the night His praise.
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling base ;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to heaven.
Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove;
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll.
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the summer-ray
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,
Or Winter rises in the blackening east ;
Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more, 1
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!

Should fate command me to the furthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on th' Atlantic isles; 'tis nought to me.
Since God is ever present, ever felt,

In the void waste as in the city full;
And where He vital breathes there must be joy.
When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go
Where Universal Love smiles not around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in Him, in Light ineffable!

Come then, expressive Silence, muse His praise.

63

THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

CANTO I.

The Castle high of Indolence,

And its false luxury,

Where for a little time, alas!
We liv'd right jollily.

I.

O MORTAL man! who livest here by toil
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,*
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date:
And, certes,+there is for it reason great;

For though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy star, and early drudge, and late,
Withouten that would come an heavier bale, ‡
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.
II.

In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,

With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,

Than whom a fiend more fell is no where found.
It was,
I ween, a lovely spot of ground;

And there a season atween§ June and May,
Half prankt with Spring, with Summer half em-
brown'd,

A listless climate made, where, sooth ¶ to say, No living wight** could work, nett cared even for play.

III.

Was nought around but images of rest,
Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between,
And flowery beds that slumb'rous influence kest
From poppies breath'd and beds of pleasant green,
Where never yet was creeping creature seen.
Meantime unnumber'd glittering streamlets play'd,
And hurled every where their waters sheen,ÿÿ
That, as they bicker'd through the sunny glade,
Though restless still themselve, a lulling murmur made.
IV.

Join'd to the prattle of the purling rills
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills,
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale;
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep;

Yet all these sounds yblent |||| inclined all to sleep.
V.

Full in the passage of the vale, above,
A sable, silent, solemn, forest stood,
Where nought but shadowy forms were seen to move,
As idless fancy'd in her dreaming mood;

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And up the hills, on either side, a wood
Of blackening pines, ay,* waving to and fro,
Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood;
And where this valley winded out, below,
The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard
to flow.

VI.

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye,
And of gay castles in the cloud that pass,

For ever flushing round a summer sky;
There eke the soft delights, that witchingly
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,
And the calm pleasures, always hover'd nigh;
But whate'er smack'd‡ of noyances or unrest
Was far, far off expell'd from this delicious nest.
VII.

The landscape such, inspiring perfect ease,
Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight)
Close hid his Castle 'mid embowering trees,
That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright,
And made a kind of checker'd day and night;
Mean while, unceasing at the massy gate,
Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight
Was plac'd, and to his lute, of cruel fate,
And labour harsh complain'd, lamenting man's estate.
VIII.

Thither continual pilgrims crowded still,
From all the roads of earth that pass thereby;
For as they chanc'd to breathe on neighbouring hill,
The freshness of this valley smote their eye,
And drew them ever and anon more nigh;
Till clustering round th' enchanter false they hung,
Ymolten with his syren melody,

While o'er th' enfeebling lute his hand he flung,
And to the trembling chords these tempting verses
sung:-

IX.

"Behold, ye pilgrims of this earth! behold,
See all but man with unearn'd pleasure gay;
See her bright robes the butterfly unfold,
Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May!
What youthful bride can equal her array!
Who can with her for easy pleasure vie?
From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray,
From flow'r to flow'r on balmy gales to fly,
Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.

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X.

"Behold the merry minstrels of the morn,
The swarming songsters of the careless grove,
Ten thousand throats, that from the flowering thorn,
Hymn their good God, and carol sweet of love,
Such grateful kindly raptures them emove:
They neither plough nor sow; ne, fit for flail,
E'er to the barn the nodden sheaves they drove,
Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale,
Whatever crowns the hill, or smiles along the vale.

XI.

"Outcast of Nature, man! the wretched thrall
Of bitter dropping sweat, of swealtry pain,
Of cares that eat away thy heart with gall,
And of the vices an inhuman train,

That all proceed from savage thirst of gain;
For when hard-hearted interest first began
To poison earth, Astræa left the plain;
Guile, violence, and murder, seiz'd on man,

And for soft milky streams, with blood the rivers ran.

XII.

"Come ye! who still the cumb'rous load of life
Push hard up hill, but as the farthest steep
You trust to gain, and put an end to strife,
Down thunders back the stone with mighty sweep,
And hurls your labours to the valley deep,
For ever vain; come, and withouten fee,
I in oblivion will your sorrows steep,
Your cares, your toils; will steep you in a sea
Of full delight; O come, ye weary wights! to me.
XIII.

"With me you need not rise at early dawn,
To pass
the joyless day in various stounds;*
Or, louting low, on upstart fortune fawn,
And sell fair honour for some paltry pounds;
Or through the city take your dirty rounds,
To cheat, and dun, and lie, and visit pay,
Now flattering base, now giving secret wounds;
Or prowl in courts of law for human prey,
In venal senate thrive, or rob on broad highway.
XIV.

"No cocks, with me, to rustic labour call,
From village on to village sounding clear;
No tardy swain, no shrill-voic'd matrons squall;
No dogs, no babes, no wives, to stun your ear;
No hammers thump; no horrid blacksmith sear.
Ne noisy tradesmen your sweet slumbers start
With sounds that are a misery to hear;
But all is calm, as would delight the heart
Of Syborite of old, all nature, and all art,

XV.

"Here nought but candour reigns, indulgent ease,
Good-natur'd lounging, sauntering up and down;
They who are pleas'd themselves must always please;
On other's ways they never squint a frown,
Nor heed what haps in hamlet or in town:
Thus, from the source of tender indolence,
With milky blood the heart is overflown,
Is sooth'd and sweeten'd by the social sense;

For interest, envy, pride, and strife, are banish'd hence.

XVI.

"What, what is virtue, but repose of mind, A pure ethereal calm, that knows no storm, Above the reach of wild ambition, blind, Above those passions that this world deform,

Misfortune.

And torture man, a proud malignant worm?
But here, instead, soft gales of passion play,
And gently stir the heart, thereby to form
A quicker sense of joy; as breezes stray

Across th' enliven'd skies, and make them still more gay.

XVII.

"The best of men have ever lov'd repose;
They hate to mingle in the filthy fray,
Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour grows;
Embitter'd more from peevish day to day.
Even those whom Fame had lent her fairest ray,
The most renown'd of worthy wights of yore,
From a base world at last have stol'n away:
So Scipio, to the soft Cumaan shore,
Retiring, tasted joy he never knew before.
XVIII.

"But if a little exercise you choose,

Some zest for ease, 'tis not forbidden here ;
Amid the groves you may indulge the Muse,
Or tend the blooms, and deck the vernal year;
Or, softly stealing, with your watery gear,
Along the brooks, the crimson-spotted fry
You may delude; the whilst, amus'd you hear
Now the hoarse stream, and now the zephyr's sigh,
Attuned to the birds' and woodlands' melody.

XIX.

"O grievious folly! to heap up estate,
Losing the days you see beneath the sun;
When, sudden comes blind unrelenting Fate,
And gives th' untasted portion you have won,
With ruthless toil, and many a wretch undone,
To those who mock you gone to Pluto's reign,
There with sad ghosts to pine and shadows dun:
But sure it is of vanities most vain,
To toil for what you here untoiling may obtain."

XX.

He ceas'd; but still their trembling ears retain'd
The deep vibrations of his witching song,
That, by a kind of magic power, constrain'd
To enter in, pell-mell the listening throng.
Heaps pour'd on heaps, and yet they slipt along,
In silent ease: as when beneath the beam
Of summer moons, the distant woods among,
Or by some flood all silver'd with the gleam,
The soft embodied fays* through airy portal stream.
XXI.

By the smooth demon so it order'd was,
And here his baneful bounty first began;
Though some there were who would not further pass,
And his alluring baits suspected han,t

The wise distrust the too fair-spoken man.
Yet through the gate they cast a wistful eye:
For do their very best they cannot fly,
Not to move on, perdie, ‡ is all they can ;

But often each way look, and often sorely sigh.

XXII.

When this the watchful wicked wizard saw,
With sudden spring he leap'd upon them straight,
And soon as touch'd by his unhallow'd paw,
They found themselves within the cursed gate,
Full hard to be repass'd, like that of Fate,
Not stronger were of old the giant crew,
Who sought to pull high Jove from regal state;
Though feeble wretch he seem'd of sallow hue,
Certes, who bides his grasp will that encounter rue.

+ Bending.

* Fairies.

↑ Have.

Par Dieu (an old oath).

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