The frame of burnished steel, that cast a glare
From far, and seemed to thaw the freezing air.
A straight long entry to the temple led,
Blind with high walls, and horror over head;
Thence issued such a blast, and hollow roar,
As threatened from the hinge to heave the door;
In through that door a northern light there shone;
"Twas all it had, for windows there were none.
The gate was adamant; eternal frame!
Which, hewed by Mars himself, from Indian
quarries came,

The labour of a god; and all along

Tough iron plates were clenched to make it

strong.

A tun about was every pillar there;

A polished mirror shone not half so clear.

There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
And treason labouring in the traitor's thought,
And midwife Time the ripened plot to murder
brought.

There the red Anger dared the pallid Fear;
Next stood Hypocrisy, with holy leer;

Soft smiling, and demurely looking down,
But hid the dagger underneath the gown;
The assassinating wife, the household fiend;
And, far the blackest there, the traitor-friend.
On t'other side there stood Destruction bare,
Unpunished Rapine, and a waste of war;
Contest, with sharpened knives, in cloisters
drawn,

And all with blood bespread the holy lawn.
Loud menaces were heard, and foul disgrace,

And bawling infamy, in language base;

Till sense was lost in sound, and silence fled the place.

The slayer of himself yet saw I there,

The gore congealed was clottered in his hair;

550

555

560

565

570

575

With eyes half-closed, and gaping mouth he lay,
And grim, as when he breathed his sullen soul

away.

In midst of all the dome, Misfortune sat,

And gloomy Discontent, and fell Debate,
And Madness laughing in his ireful mood;

And armed complaint on theft; and cries of

blood.

There was the murdered corpse in covert laid,

580

And violent death in thousand shapes displayed ; 585 The city to the soldier's rage resigned;

Successless wars, and poverty behind:

Ships burnt in fight, or forced on rocky shores,
And the rash hunter strangled by the boars;
The new-born babe by nurses overlaid;

And the cook caught within the raging fire he
made.

All ills of Mars his nature, flame, and steel;
The gasping charioteer, beneath the wheel
Of his own car; the ruined house, that falls
And intercepts her lord betwixt the walls:
The whole division that to Mars pertains,
All trades of death that deal in steel for gains,
Were there; the butcher, armourer, and smith,
Who forges sharpened falchions, or the scythe.
The scarlet conquest* on a tower was placed,
With shouts, and soldiers' acclamations graced :
A pointed sword hung threat'ning o'er his head,
Sustained but by a slender twine of thread.
There saw I Mars his ides, the Capitol,
The seer in vain foretelling Cæsar's fall;
The last triumvirs, and the wars they move,
And Antony, who lost the world for love.
These, and a thousand more, the fane adorn;
Their fates were painted ere the men were born,

590

595

600

605

All copied from the heavens, and ruling force
Of the red star, in his revolving course.
The form of Mars high on a chariot stood,

610

All sheathed in arms, and gruffly looked the
god;

Two geomantic figures were displayed
Above his head, a warrior and a maid, *
One when direct, and one when retrograde. †
Tired with deformities of death, I haste
To the third temple, of Diana chaste.

A sylvan scene with various greens was drawn,
Shades on the sides, and on the midst a lawn;
The silver Cynthia, with her nymphs around,
Pursued the flying deer, the woods with horns
resound:

Calisto there stood manifest of shame,

And, turned a bear, the northern star became :

615

620

Her son was next, and, by peculiar grace,

625

In the cold circle held the second place:
The stag Acteon in the stream had spied
The naked huntress, and for seeing died;

His hounds, unknowing of his change, pursue
The chase, and their mistaken master slew.
Peneian Daphne too was there, to see
Apollo's love before, and now his tree.
The adjoining fane the assembled Greeks ex-
pressed,

630

And hunting of the Caledonian beast.

* Rubeus and Puella.-D. [These are stars, which explains "direct" and "retrograde." The use of the term " geomantic" seems to be loose, and merely = "symbolic,” "mysterious;" for no exact sense of geomancy applies. Yet Dryden was rather curious in the occult sciences.-ED.] † Dryden has here omitted a striking circumstance :— A wolf there stood before him at his feet, With eyen red, and of a man he eat.

+ [It should of course be Calydonian.—ED.]

635

Oenides' valour, and his envied prize;
The fatal power of Atalanta's eyes;
Diana's vengeance on the victor shown,
The murderess mother, and consuming son;
The Volscian queen * extended on the plain;
The treason punished, and the traitor slain.
The rest were various huntings, well designed,
And savage beasts destroyed, of every kind.
The graceful goddess was arrayed in green;
About her feet were little beagles seen,
That watched with upward eyes the motions of
their queen.

640

645

Her legs were buskined, and the left before,

In act to shoot, a silver bow she bore,

And at her back a painted quiver wore.

She trod a wexing moon, that soon would wane,

And, drinking borrowed light, be filled again;

650

With downcast eyes, as seeming to survey

The dark dominions, her alternate sway.
Before her stood a woman in her throes,

And called Lucina's aid, her burden to disclose.

All these the painter drew with such command, 655
That Nature snatched the pencil from his hand,
Ashamed and angry that his art could feign,
And mend the tortures of a mother's pain.
Theseus beheld the fanes of every god,

And thought his mighty cost was well bestowed. 660
So princes now their poets should regard;

But few can write, and fewer can reward.

The theatre thus raised, the lists inclosed, And all with vast magnificence disposed,

We leave the monarch pleased, and haste to bring

The knights to combat, and their arms to sing.

* [Camilla.-ED.]

665

5

The important enterprise, and give the bride;
For now the rivals round the world had sought,
And each his number, well appointed, brought.
The nations, far and near, contend in choice,
And send the flower of war by public voice;
That after, or before, were never known
Such chiefs, as each an army seemed alone:
Beside the champions, all of high degree,
Who knighthood loved, and deeds of chivalry, 10
Thronged to the lists, and envied to behold.
The names of others, not their own, enrolled.
Nor seems it strange; for every noble knight,
Who loves the fair, and is endued with might,
In such a quarrel would be proud to fight.
There breathes not scarce a man on British
ground,

(An isle for love, and arms, of old renowned,)

15