How I have lov'd, excufe my fal'tring tongue,
My fpirits feeble, and my pains are strong:
This I may fay, I only grieve to die
Because I lose my charming Emily:
To die, when Heav'n had put you in my pow'r,
Fate could not chufe a more malicious hour!
What greater curfe could envious fortune give,
Than just to die, when I began to live!
Vain men, how vanishing a blifs we crave,
Now warm in love, now with'ring in the grave!
Never, O never more to fee the fun!
Still dark, in a damp vault, and still alone!
This fate is common; but I lofe my breath
Near blifs, and yet not blefs'd before
my death.
Farewel; but take me dying in your arms,
"Tis all I can enjoy of all your charms:
This hand I cannot but in death refign;
Ah! could I live! but while I live 'tis mine.
I feel my end approach, and thus embrac'd,
Am pleas'd to die; but hear me fpeak my laft,
Ah! my
fweet foe, for you, and you alone,
my faith with injur❜d Palamon.
But love the sense of right and wrong confounds,
Strong love' and proud ambition have no bounds.
And much I doubt should Heav'n my life prolong,
I should return to justify my wrong:
For while my former flames remain within,
Repentance is but want of pow'r to fin.
With mortal hatred I purfu'd his life,
Nor he, nor you, were guilty of the ftrife;
Nor I, but as I lov'd; yet all combin'd,
Your beauty, and my impotence of mind;
And his concurrent flame, that blew my fire:
For ftill our kindred fouls had one defire.
He had a moment's right in point of time;
Had I feen firft, then his had been the crime.
Fate made it mine, and justify'd his right;
Nor holds this earth a more deferving knight,
For virtue, valour, and for noble blood,
Truth, honour, all that is compriz'd in good;
So help me Heav'n, in all the world is none
So worthy to be lov'd as Palamon.
He loves you too, with fuch an holy fire,
As will not, cannot but with life expire:
Our vow'd affections both have often try'd,
Nor any love but yours could ours divide.
Then by my love's inviolable band,
By my long fuff'ring, and my fhort command,
If e'er you plight your vows when I am gone,
Have pity on the faithful Palamon.
This was his laft; for death came on amain,
And exercis'd below his iron reign;
Then upward to the feat of life he goes:
Senfe fled before him, what he touch'd he froze:
Yet could he not his clofing eyes withdraw,
Though lefs and lefs of Emily he faw;
So, fpeechless, for a little space he lay ;
Then grafp'd the hand he held, and figh'd his foul away.
But whither went his foul, let fuch relate
Who fearch the fecrets of the future ftate:
Divines can fay but what themselves believe;
Strong proofs they have, but not demonftrative:
For, were all plain, then all fides must agree,
And faith itfelf be loft in certainty.
To live uprightly then is fure the best,
To fave ourselves, and not to damn the rest.
The foul of Arcite went where heathens go,
Who better live than we, tho' less they know.
In Palamon a manly grief appears;
Silent, he wept, afham'd to fhew his tears:
Emilia fhriek'd but once, and then, opprefs'd
With forrow, funk upon her lover's breast:
F 3
Till Thefeus in his arms convey'd with care,
Far from fo fad a fight, the fwooning fair.
"Twere lofs of time her forrow to relate;
Ill bears the fex a youthful lover's fate,
When just approaching to the nuptial state.
But like a low-hung cloud, it rains so fast,
That all at once it falls, and cannot last,
The face of things is chang'd, and Athens now,
That laugh'd so late, becomes the scene of woe:
Matrons and maids, both fexes, ev'ry ftate,
With tears lament the knight's untimely fate.
Nor greater grief in falling Troy was feen
For Hector's death; but Hector was not then.
Old men with duft deform'd their hoary hair,
The women beat their breafts, their cheeks they tare.
Why wou'dft thou go, with one confent they cry
When thou hadft gold enough, and Emily.
Thefeus himself, who should have cheer'd the grief
Of others, wanted now the fame relief,
Old Egeus only could revive his fon,
Who various changes of the world had known:
And strange viciffitudes of human fate,
Still alt'ring, never in a steady state;
Good after ill, and after pain, delight;
Alternate like the fcenes of day and night:
Since ev'ry man, who lives, is born to die,
And none can boast sincere felicity,
With equal mind, what happens, let us bear,
Nor joy, nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.
Like pilgrims to th' appointed place we tend;
The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.
Ev'n kings but play; and when their part is done,
Some other, worfe or better, mount the throne.
With words like these the crowd was fatisfy'd,
And so they would have been, had Thefeus dy'd.
But he, their king, was lab'ring in his mind,
A fitting place for fun'ral pomps to find,
Which were in honour of the dead design'd.
And after long debate, at last he found
(As love itself had mark'd the spot of ground)
That grove for ever green, that conscious lawnd,
Where he with Palamon fought hand to hand:
That where he fed his amorous defires
With foft complaints, and felt his hottest fires,
There other flames might waste his earthly part,
And burn his limbs, where love had burn'd his heart.
This once refolv'd, the peasants were enjoin'd
Sere-wood, and firs, and dodder'd oaks to find.
With founding axes to the grove they go,
Fell, fplit, and lay the fuel on a row,
Vulcanian food: a bier is next prepar'd,
On which the lifeless body should be rear'd,
Cover'd with cloth of gold, on which was laid
The corpfe of Arcite, in like robes array'd.
White gloves were on his hands, and on his head
A wreath of laurel, mix'd with myrtle spread.
A fword keen-edg'd within his right he held,
The warlike emblem of the conquer'd field:
Bare was his manly visage on the bier:
Menac'd his count'nance; ev'n in death severe.
Then to the palace-hall they bore the knight,
To lie in folemn ftate, a public fight.
Groans, cries, and howlings fill the crowded place,
And unaffected forrow fat on ev'ry face.
Sad Palamon above the rest appears,
In fable garments, dew'd with gushing tears:
His auburn locks on either shoulder flow'd,
Which to the fun'ral of his friend he vow'd:
But Emily, as chief, was next his fide,
A virgin-widow, and a mourning bride.
And that the princely obfequies might be
Perform'd according to his high degree,
The steed, that bore him living to the fight,
Was trapp'd with polish'd fteel, all shining bright,
And cover'd with th' atchievements of the knight.
The riders rode abreast, and one his shield,
His lance of cornel-wood another held;
The third his bow, and, glorious to behold,
The coftly quiver, all of burnish'd gold.
The nobleft of the Grecians next appear,
And, weeping, on their fhoulders bore the bier;
With fober pace they march'd, and often staid,
And thro' the mafter-street the corpse convey'd.
The houses to their tops with black were spread,
And ev'n the pavements were with mourning hid.
The right fide of the pall old Egeus kept,
And on the left the royal Thefeus wept ;
Each bore a golden bowl of work divine,
With honey fill'd, and milk, and mix'd with ruddy wine.
Then Palamon, the kinfman of the slain,
And after him appear'd th' illuftrious train.
Το grace the pomp, came Emily the bright,
With cover'd fire, the fun'ral pile to light,
With high devotion was the service made,
And all the rites of pagan-honour paid:
So lofty was the pile, a Parthian bow,
With vigour drawn, muft fend the fhaft below,
The bottom was full twenty fathom broad,
With crackling ftraw beneath in due proportion ftrow'd.
The fabric feem'd a wood of rising green,
With fulphur and bitumen caft between,
To feed the flames: the trees were unctuous fir,
And mountain-afh, the mother of the spear;
The mourner-yew, and builder oak were there:
The beech, the swimming alder, and the plane,
Hard box, and linden of a fofter grain,
And laurels,which the Gods for conqu❜ring chiefsordain,
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