cured
An abject passion, long with pain endured:
To Vashti for an easy boon he sued;
She scorn'd his suit, and rage his love subdued:
Soon to its aid a softer passion came,
And from his breast expell'd the former flame:
Like wedge by wedge displaced, the nuptial ties
He breaks, and soon another bride supplies.--
But if you wish to see the bosom (war
Of Jealousy and Love) in deadly jar,
Behold that royal Jew! the dire control
Of Love and Hate by turns besiege his soul.
Now Vengeance wins the day--the deed is done!
And now, in fell remorse, he hates the sun,
And calls his consort from the realms of night,
To which his fatal hand had sped her flight--
Behold yon hapless three, by passion lost,
Procris, and Artemisia's royal ghost;
And her, whose son (his mother's grief and joy)
Razed with paternal rage the walls of Troy,--
Another triple sisterhood is seen;
This characters of Hades. Mark their mien
With sin distain'd: their downcast looks disclose
A conscience of their crimes, and dread of coming woes.--
Semiramis, and Byblis (famed of old)
Her mother's rival there you next behold;
With many a warrior, many a lovely dame
Of old, ennobled by romantic fame.--
There Lancelot and Tristram (famed in fight)
Are seen, with many a dame and errant knight;--
Genevra, Belle Isonde, and hundreds more;
With those who mingled their incestuous gore
Shed by paternal rage; and chant beneath,
In baneful symphony, the Song of Death."
He scarce had spoken, when a chill presage
(What warriors feel before the battle's rage,
When in the angry trump's sonorous breath
They hear, before it comes, the sound of Death)
My heart possess'd; and, tinged with deadly pale,
I seem'd escaped from Death's eternal jail;
When, fleeting to my side with looks of Love,
A phantom brighter than the Cyprian dove
My fingers clasp'd; which, though of power to wield
The temper'd sabre in the bloody field
Against an armed foe, a touch subdued;
And gentle words, and looks that fired the blood,
My friend addressed me (I remember well),
And from his lips these dubious accents fell:--
"Converse with whom you please, for all the train
Are mark'd alike the slaves of Cupid's reign."--
Thus, in security and peace trepann'd,
I was enlisted in that wayward band,