While thine-it gaily pleas'd the view
Unfaded, as before it grew!
Now, from thy bofom doom'd to stray,
'Tis only beauteous in decay
So the fweet-fmelling Indian flowers,
Griev'd when they leave thofe happier fhores,
Sicken, and die away in ours.
So flowers, in Eden fond to blow,
In Paradife would only grow.
Nor wonder, faireft, to furvey
The flower fo fuddenly decay!
Too cold thy breaft! nor can it grow
Between fuch little hills of fnow.
I now, vain infidel, no more
Deride th' Egyptians, who adore
The rifing herb, and blooming flower;
Now, now their convert I will be,
O lovely flower, to worship thee.
But if thou 'rt one of their fad train
Who dy'd for love, and cold difdain,
Who, chang'd by some kind pitying power,
A+ lover once, art now a flower;
O pity me, O weep my care,
A thoufand, thousand pains I bear,
I love, I die through deep despair!
VARIATION.
-how could it grow. See Ovid's Metamorph.
The STORY of TALU s, from the Fourth Book of Apollonius Rhodius. V. 1629.
ΗμΘ δ' έλιθ μὲν δυ, νὰ δ ̓ ἤλυθεν ας ήρ
Αλιθ, &c.
THE evening ftar now lifts, as day-light fades,
His golden circlet in the deepening fhades,
Stretch'd at his cafe, the weary labourer shares
A fweet forgetfulness of human cares;
At once in filence fink the fleeping gales,
The maft they drop, and furl the flagging fails,
All night, all day, they ply the bending oars,
Tow'rd Carpathus, and reach the rocky fhores;
Thence Crete they view, emerging from the main,
The queen of ifles, but Crete they view in vain,
There Talus, whirling with refiftless sway,
Rocks fheer uprent, repels them from the bay:
A giant, fprung from giant-race, who took
Their births from entrails of the ftubborn oak;
Fierce guard of Crete! by Jove assistant given
Tot legislators, ftyl'd the fons of heaven:
To mercy deaf, he thrice each year explores
The trembling isle, and strides from fhores to flores:
A form of living brafs! one part beneath
Alone he bears, a path to let in death,
Where o'er the ankle fwells the turgid vein,
Soft to the ftroke, and fenfible of pain.
† Minos and Rhadamanthus.
And now her magic spells * Medea tries,
Bids the red fiends, the dogs of Orcus rise,
That, ftarting dreadful from th' infernal fhade,
Ride heaven in storms, and all that breathes, invade ;
Thrice the applies the power of magic prayer,
Thrice, hellward bending, mutters charms in air;
Then, turning tow'rd the foe, bids mifchief fly,
And looks deftruction, as fhe points her eye;
Then fpectres, rifing from Tartarean bowers,
Howl round in air, or grin along the shores;
While, tearing up whole hills, the giant throws
Outrageous, rocks on rocks, to crush the foes:
But, frantic as he ftrides, a fudden wound
Burfts the life-vein, and blood o'erfpreads the ground,
As from the furnace, in a burning flood,
Pours molten lead, fo pours in ftreams his blood;
And now he ftaggers, as the spirit flies,
He faints, he finks, he tumbles, and he dies.
As fome huge cedar on a mountain's brow,
Pierc'd by the steel, expects the final blow,
A while it totters with alternate sway,
Till freshening breezes through the branches play;
Then, tumbling downward with a thundering found,
Falls headlong, and o'erfpreads a breadth of ground:
So as the giant falls, the ocean roars,
Out-ftretch'd he lies, and covers half the fhores.
From the ELEVENTH BOOK of the ILIADS of
In the Style of MILTON.
NOW gay Aurora from Tithonus' bed
Rofe in the orient, to proclaim the day
To Gods and men: down to the Grecian tents
Saturnian Jove fends difcord, red with blood;
War in her hand the grafps, enfigns of war;
On brave Ulyffes' fhip the took her stand,
The centre of the hoft; that all might hear
Her dreadful voice: her dreadful voice the rais'd,
Jarring along the rattling fhores it ran
To the fleet's wide extremes; Achilles heard,
And Ajax heard the found; with martial fires
Now every bofom burns, arms, glorious arms,
Fierce they demand; the noble Orthian fong
Swells every heart, no coward thoughts of flight
Rife in their fouls, but blood they breathe and war.
Now by the trench profound, the charioteers
Range their proud fteeds, now car by car displays
A direful front; now o'er the trembling field
Rufhes th' embattled foot; noife rends the fkies,
Noife unextinguifh'd: ere the beamy day
Flam'd in th' aërial vault, ftretch'd in the van
Stood the bold infantry: The rushing cars
Form'd the deep rear in battailous array.
Now from his heavens Jove hurls his burning bolts, Hoarse muttering thunders grumble in the fky, While from the clouds, inftead of morning-dews, Huge drops of blood distain the crimson ground; Fatal prefage! that in that dreadful day
The great fhould bleed, imperial heads lie low!
Mean time the bands of Troy in proud array
Stand to their arms, and from a rising ground
Breathe furious war: Here gathering hofts attend
The towering Hector: there refulgent bands
Surround Polydamas, Æneas there
Marshals his dauntlefs files; nor unemploy'd
Stand Polybus, Agenor great in arms,
And Acamas, whofe frame the Gods endow'd
With more than mortal charms: fierce in the van
Stern Hector fhines, and shakes his blazing shield,
As the fierce dog-ftar with malignant fires
Flames in the front of heaven, then, loft in clouds,
Veils his pernicious beams; from rank to rank
So Hector ftrode; now dreadful in the van
Advanc'd his fun-broad thield, now to the rear
Swift rufhing difappear'd: His radiant arms
Blaz'd on his limbs, and bright as Jove's dire bolts
Flash'd o'er the field, and lighten'd to the fkies.
As toiling reapers in fome fpacious field,
Rang'd in two bands, move adverfe, rank on rank
Where o'er the tilth the grain in ears of gold
Waves nodding to the breeze; at once they bend,
At once the copious harvest fwells the ground:
So rush to battle o'er the dreadful field
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