my heart thus miferably torn
Why am I thus diftrefs'd! why thus forlorn!
Am I that wretched thing a widow left?
Why do I live, who am of thee bereft!
Yet I were bleft, were I alone undone;
Alas, my child! where can an infant run?
Unhappy orphan! thou in woes art nurs'd;
Why were you born? - I am with bleffings curs'd!
For long ere thou fhall be to manhood grown,
Wide defolation will lay wafte this town:
Who is there now that can protection give,
Since he, who was her ftrength, no more doth live?
Who of her reverend matrons will have care?
Who fave her children from the rage of war?
For he to all father and hufband was,
And all are orphans now, and widows, by his lofs.
Soon will the Grecians, now, infulting come,
And bear us captives to their distant home;
I, with my child, muft the fame fortune share,
And all alike, be prifoners of the war;
'Mongst base-born wretches he his lot must have,
And be to fome inhuman lord a flave.
Elfe fome avenging Greek, with fury fill'd,
Or for an only fon or father kill'd
By Hector's hand, on him will vent his
And with his blood his thirfty grief affuage;
For many fell by his relentless hand,
Biting that ground, with which their blood was ftain'd. Fierce was thy father (O my child) in war,
And never did his foes in battle spare ;
Thence come these fufferings, which so much have cost,
Much woe to all, but fure to me the most.
I faw him not, when in the pangs of death,
Nor did my lips receive his latest breath;
Why held he not to me his dying hand?
And why receiv'd not I his last command?
Something he would have faid had I been there,
Which I should still in fad remembrance bear;
For I could never, never words forget,
Which night and day I should with tears repeat.
She fpake, and wept afresh, when all around
A general figh diffus'd a mournful found.
Then, Hecuba, who long had been opprest
With boiling paffions in her aged breast,
Mingling her words with fighs and tears, begun
A lamentation for her darling fon.
Hector, my joy, and to my foul more dear
Than all my other numerous iffue were;
O my last comfort, and my best-belov'd!
Thou, at whose fall even Jove himself was mov'd,
And fent a god his dread commands to bear,
So far thou wert high heaven's peculiar care!
From fierce Achilles' chains thy corpfe was freed;
So kind a fate was for none else decreed:
My other fons, made prisoners by his hands,
Were fold like flaves, and shipt to foreign lands.
Thou too wert sentenc'd by his barbarous doom,
And dragg'd, when dead, about Patroclus' tomb,
His lov'd Patroclus, whom thy hands had flain :
And yet that cruelty was us'd in vain,
Since all could not reftore his life again.
Now fresh and glowing, ev'n in death thou art,
And fair as he who fell by Phoebus' dart.
Here weeping Hecuba her paffion stay'd,
And univerfal moan again was made;
When Helen's lamentation hers fupply'd,
And thus, aloud, that fatal beauty cry'd.
O Hector, thou wert rooted in my heart,
No brother there had half fo large a part!
Not lefs than twenty years are now pafs'd o'er,
Since firft I landed on the Trojan shore;
Since I with godlike Paris fled from home;
(Would I had dy'd before that day had come!)
In all which time (fo gentle was thy mind)
I ne'er could charge thee with a deed unkind;
Not one untender word, or look of scorn,
Which I too often have from others borne.
But you from their reproach still fet me free,
And kindly have reprov'd their cruelty;
If by my fifters or the Queen revil'd,
(For the good King, like you, was ever mild)
Your kindness still has all my grief beguil❜d.
Ever in tears let me your lofs bemoan,
Who had no friend alive but you alone:
All will reproach me now where'er I pass,
And fly with horror from my hated face.
This faid, the wept; and the vast throng was mov'd,
And with a general figh her grief approv'd.
When Priam (who had heard the mourning crowd)
Rofe from his feat, and thus he fpake aloud :
"Ceafe your lamentings, Trojans, for a while,
"And fell-down trees to build a funeral pile;
"Fear not an ambush by the Grecians laid,
"For with Achilles twelve days truce I made."
He spake; and all obey'd as with one mind,
Chariots were brought, and mules and oxen join'd
Forth from the city all the people went,
And nine days space was in that labour spent ;
The tenth, a moft ftupendous pile they made,
And on the top the manly Hector laid,
Then gave it fire; while all, with weeping cycs,
Beheld the rolling flames and fmoke arise.
All night they wept, and all the night it burn'd;
But when the rofy morn with day return'd,
About the pile the thronging people came,
And with black wine quench'd the remaining flame.
His brothers then and friends fearch'd every where,
And gathering up his fnowy bones with care,
Wept o'er them; when an urn of gold was brought,
Wrapt in foft purple palls, and richly wrought,
In which the facred ashes were interr'd,
Then o'er his grave a monument they rear'd.
Mean time, strong guards were plac'd, and careful spies,
To watch the Grecians, and prevent surprize.
The work once ended, all the vast resort
Of mourning people went to Priam's court;
There they refrefh'd their weary limbs with rest,
Ending the funeral with a folemn feast.
"Mater fæva Cupidinum, &c.”
THE tyrant Queen of foft defires,
With the refiftlefs aid of sprightly Wine
And wanton Eafe, confpires
To make my heart its peace refign,
And re-admit Love's long-rejected fires.
For beauteous Glycera I burn,
The flames fo long repell'd with double force return. Matchlefs her face appears, and fhines more bright Than polish'd marble when reflecting light :
Her very coynefs warms;
And with a grateful fullennefs fhe charms :
Each look darts forth a thousand rays,
Whose luftre an unwary fight betrays ;
My eye-balls fwim, and I grow giddy while I gaze.
II.
She comes! fhe comes! the rushes in my veins !
At once all Venus enters, and at large fhe reigns!
|