Her gloomy prefence faddens all the scene,
Shades ev'ry flow'r, and darkens ev'ry green,
Deepens the murmur of the falling floods,
And breathes a browner horror on the woods.

Yet here for ever, ever must I stay;
Sad proof how well a lover can obey!
Death, only death, can break the lasting chain;
And here, ev'n then, shall my cold duft remain,
Here all its frailties, all its flames resign,
And wait till 'tis no fin to mix with thine.

170

175

Ah wretch! believ'd the spoufe of God in vain,
Confefs'd within the flave of love and man.
Assist me, heav'n! but whence arofe that pray'r?
Sprung it from piety, or from defpair?
Ev'n here, where frozen chastity retires,
Love finds an altar for forbidden fires.

180

I ought to grieve, but cannot what I ought;
I mourn the lover, not lament the fault;

I view my crime, but kindle at the view,
Repent old pleasures, and folicit new;
Now turn'd to heav'n, I weep my past offence,
Now think of thee, and curse my innocence.

185

Of

NOTES.

VER. 177. Ab wretch!] From the Letters; as also v. 133; and also v. 251; from the Letters. Epift. ii. p. 67. WARTON. VER 182. An altar for forbidden fires, Dr. Warton asks whether we ought to neglect the pathetic Tale of Rousseau's Eloise, because many of his other writings are so objectionable ? Is not that "Pathetic Tale," highly objectionable? yes, for the very reason that, like this poem, it is interesting and pathetic, and conveys the most fallacious and dangerous fentiments in the most captivating language.

Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
'Tis fure the hardest science to forget ?
How shall I lose the fin, yet keep the sense,
And love th' offender, yet deteft th' offence?
How the dear object from the crime remove,
Or how diftinguish penitence from love?

190

Unequal task! a passion to resign,.

195

For hearts fo touch'd, so pierc'd, so lost as mine.

Ere fuch a foul regains its peaceful state,

How often must it love, how often hate!

How often hope, despair, resent, regret,
Conceal, difdain, do all things but forget.
But let heav'n feize it, all at once 'tis fir'd;
Not touch'd, but rapt; not waken'd, but inspir'd!
Oh come! oh teach me nature to fubdue,
Renounce my love, my life, myself and you.
Fill my fond heart with God alone, for he
Alone can rival, can fucceed to thee.

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot?
The world forgetting, by the world forgot:
Eternal fun-fhine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;

NOTES.

200

205

Labour

VER. 201. But let heav'n feize it,] Here is the true doctrine of the Mystics. There are many such strains in Crashaw, particularly in a poem called The Flaming Heart, and in the Seraphical Saint Teresa in Crashaw.

WARTON.

But how beautiful an use has Pope here made of this doctrine, at the fame time nothing is introduced that here offends our feri

Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;"

211

Defires compos'd, affections ever even ;
Tears that delight, and fighs that waft to heav'n.
Grace shines around her with ferenest beams,

215

And whisp'ring Angels prompt her golden dreams.

For

NOTES.

VER 212. Obedient slumbers, &c.] Taken from Crashaw. POPE. Milton also honoured Crashaw by borrowing some lines from his translation of Marino's Slaughter of the Innocents. See Crashaw in the Letters, vol. vii. WARTON.

VER. 215. Grace shines around her] Here follow fome of the maxims and reflections of Fenelon: -" God, in the beginning, disengages our hearts from impure pleasures by the taste he gives us of a heavenly delectation. Animated by the tender sentiments of a new-born love, we exercise ourselves with a noble and maf. culine vigour in all the labours of an active virtue. The foul, ravished with the divine amiableness, is no longer to be touched with the feducing charms of a profane sensuality.

" God then proceeds to another operation in us, in order to destroy the mistaken love of ourselves; and this not by pleasures, but by sufferings. After having weaned us from earthly objects, he shuts us up within the folitary prison of our own being, to the end that we may experience the darkness, the weakness, and the emptiness of it. He fets before our eyes all the fecret abominations of our felf-love, the impurity of those virtues that flow from it, and its ufurpations upon the rights of the Divinity. What a fource of torments must this be to a creature idolatrous of itself and of its own virtue! The foul finds nothing in itself that is worthy of its love; and being no longer able to endure its own society, flies away and forsakes itself, to plunge and be swallowed up in the love of that object who alone is lovely.

"Then it is that the importunate noise of the senfes and the imagination becomes hushed, the tumultuous hurry of our thoughts and paffions ceases, and the whole foul being brought into a profound filence, adores him in spirit and in truth, whose perfections

For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms,
And wings of Seraphs shed divine perfumes,
For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring,
For her white virgins Hymeneals fing,
To founds of heav'nly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.

Far other dreams my erring foul employ,
Far other raptures, of unholy joy:

NOTES.

220

When

are beyond all expreffion, and above all conception. But this filence is such as excludes only useless reflections, superfluous reasonings, and barren speculations, which interrupt the action of the heart. In loving God purely, we believe every thing he teaches, we observe every thing he commands, we hope for every thing he promifes. For this predominant charity produces, animates, and perfects in us all the virtues, human and divine." - For fuch opinions as these was the mild and amiable Fenelon condemned, at the instigation and by the intrigues of Boffuet, a violent and artful high-churchman, by the court of Rome; and, with an unexampled tone of modesty and fubmiffion, publickly confessed his errors in his own Cathedral Church. Read some delicate strokes of fatire on the Mystics and Quietists in the 12th Epistle of Boileau Sur l'Amour de Dieu, and in his 10th Satire. WARTON.

:

VER. 218. Wings of Seraphs] A late poet, (T. Warton,) speaking of a Hermit at his evening prayers, says beautifully :

Then, as my taper waxes dim,

Chant ere I fleep my measur'd hymn;
And, at the close, the gleams behold,

Of parting wings bedropt with gold.

WARTON.

VER. 219. For her] Copied exactly from the opinions and ideas of the Mystics and Quietists. There were büt fix Vestal Virgins at Rome; and it was with great difficulty the number was kept up, from the dread of the punishment for violating the vow, which was to be interred alive.

WARTON.

کے

When at the close of each fad, forrowing day, 225
Fancy restores what vengeance snatch'd away,
Then confcience sleeps, and leaving nature free,
All my loofe foul unbounded springs to thee.
Oh curst, dear horrors of all-confcious night!
How glowing guilt exalts the keen delight!

230

Provoking Demons all restraint remove,

And ftir within me every fource of love.

I hear thee, view thee, gaze o'er all thy charms,
And round thy phantom glue my clafping arms.
I wake :-no more I hear, no more I view,
The phantom flies me, as unkind as you.
I call aloud; it hears not what I fay:
I stretch my empty arms; it glides away.
To dream once more I close my willing eyes;
Ye foft illufions, dear deceits, arife;
Alas, no more! methinks we wand'ring go

235

240

Through dreary wastes, and weep each other's woe,

Where

NOTES.

VER. 241. Methinks we wand'ring] I have been sometimes inclined to think, that some vision more appropriated, and drawn from her peculiar distress, would have been more striking. Virgil adds to Dido's dream a circumstance beautifully drawn from her own story:

And feeks her Tyrians o'er the waste in vain.

PARALLEL PASSAGES.

VER, 237. I call aloud; So Sandys:
He was gone

In vain 1 fought my foul's belov'd,
I call'd him, O too far remov'd.

WARTON.

STEVENS.