(But airy substance soon unites again).
The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, for ever, and for ever!
Then flash'd the living lightning from her eyes,
And screams of horror rend the affrighted skies.
Not louder shrieks to pitying heav'n are cast,
When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last;
Or when rich China vessels fall'n from high,
In glittering dust and painted fragments lie.
Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine,
The victor cried; the glorious prize is mine!
While fish in streams, or birds delight in air,
Or in a coach and six the British fair,
As long as Atalantis shall be read,
Or the small pillow grace a lady's bed,
While visits shall be paid on solemn days,
When num'rcus waxlights in bright order blaze,
While nymphs take treats, or assignations give,
So long my honor, name, and praise shall live!
What time would spare, from steel receives its date,
And monuments, like men, submit to fate!
Steel could the labor of the gods destroy,
And strike to dust the imperial tow'rs of Troy;
And hew triumphal arches to the ground.
What wonder then, fair nymph! thy hair should feel
The conqu❜ring force of unresisted steel?
BUT anxious cares the pensive nymph oppressed,
And secret passions labor'd in her breast.
Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive,
Not scornful virgins who their charms survive,
453. Atalantis. A personal satire on certain families well known at the time.
454. The small pillow. This was a richly decorated pillow which supported ladies in a sitting posture when they received visits in their bed-chambers. The custom of so receiving visits was introduced from France.
465. Unresisted-irresistible,
Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss,
Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss,
Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,
Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry,
E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair,
As thou, sad virgin! for thy ravish'd hair.
For, that sad moment, when the sylphs withdrew And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew,
Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite,
As ever sullied the fair face of light,
Down to the central earth, his proper scene,
Repairs to search the gloomy cave of Spleen.
Swift on his sooty pinions flits the gnome,
And in a vapor reach'd the dismal dome.
No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows,
The dreaded east is all the wind that blows.
Here in a grotto, sheltered close from air,
And screen'd in shades from day's detested glare,
She sighs for ever on her pensive bed,
Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head.
Two handmaids wait the throne; alike in place,
But diff'ring far in figure and in face.
Here stood Ill-nature like an ancient maid,
Her wrinkled form in black and white array'd;
With store in pray'rs for mornings, nights, and noons,
Her hand is fill'd, her bosom with lampoons.
There Affectation, with a sickly mien,
Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen,
Practis'd to lisp and hang the head aside,
Faints into airs, and languishes with pride,
471. Ancient ladies-what are now called old maids. See 1. 493. 473. Awry. Comp. across, athwart, aslant, etc.
481. Spleen-melancholy, ennui, low spirits, hypochondria, ill-humor;
what is vulgarly called " the blues."
485. [All the wind. In what sense is the wind used here?]
486. Grotto-cave or cavern.
[What part of speech is close here?]
489. Megrim: In a plural form the word was used, and still is in the provinces, for "whims, fancies, bad spirits."
490. Wait the throne. See above, 1. 301.
495. Lampoons; originally drinking songs,
On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe,
Wrapt in a gown for sickness and for show.
The fair ones feel such maladies as these,
When each new night-dress gives a new disease.
A constant vapor o'er the palace flies,
Strange phantoms rising as the mists arise,
Dreadful, as hermit's dreams in haunted shades,
Or bright, as visions of expiring maids :
Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires,
Pale spectres, gaping tombs, and purple fires;
Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes,
And crystal domes, and angels in machines.
Unnumber'd throngs on every side are seen,
Of bodies chang'd to various forms by Spleen.
Here living tea-pots stand, one arm held out,
One bent; the handle this, and that the spout;
A pipkin there, like Homer's tripod, walks ;
Here sighs a jar, and there a goose-pie talks;
Men prove with chiid, as pow'ful fancy works,
And maids turn'd bottles call aloud for corks.
Safe past the gnome thro' this fantastic band,
A branch of healing spleenwort in his hand.
Then thus address'd the pow'r-" Hail, wayward
queen!
Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen a;
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504, So Zoilus, according to Martial fell ill to show off his fine bedfurniture.
511. Angels in machines, i. e. angels coming to succor.
513. Comp. Milton's Comus, 526-30.
516. [Pipkin. Mention other instances of this termination.]
Like Homer's Tripod. See Iliad, xviii. 372-81. esp. 373-77, which
Pope translates:
"Full twenty tripods for his hall he fram'd,
That, plac'd on living wheels of massy gold,
(Wondrous to tell) instinct with spirit roll'd
From place to place, around the blest abodes,
Self-mov'd, obedient to the beck of gods."
522. Wayward Queen: on the "like man, like master" principle. From the time of Virgil's "varium et mutabile semper femina" downwards, and long before it, women have been specially so characterized by men poets.
523. The sex. This somewhat jaunty phrase was popular in Pope's time. It is perhaps an abridgment of the fair sex.'
Parent of vapors, and of female wit,
Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit;
On various tempers act by various ways,-
Make some take physic, others scribble plays;
Who cause the proud their visits to delay,
And send the godly in a pet to pray!
A nymph there is, that all thy pow'r disdains,
And thousands more in equal mirth maintains.
But, oh! if e'er thy gnome could spoil a grace,
Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face,
Like citron-waters matrons cheeks inflame,
Or change complexions at a losing game;
Or caus'd suspicion when no soul was rude,
Or discompos'd the head-dress of a prude,
Or e'er to costive lapdog gave disease,
Which not the tears of brightest eyes could ease,
Hear me, and touch Belinda with chagrin ;
That single act gives half the world the spleen."
The goddess with a discontented air
Seems to reject him, tho' she grants his pray'r.
A wond'rous bag with both her hands she binds,
Like that where once Ulysses held the winds;
There she collects the force of female lungs,
Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues,
A vial next she fills with fainting fears,
Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears.
The gnome rejoicing bears her gift away,
Spreads his black wings, and slowly mounts to day.
Sunk in Thalestris' arms the nymph he found,
Her eyes dejected, and her hair unbound.
Full o'er their heads the swelling bag he rent,
524. Vapors. See above, 1. 482.
526. [What should we say for by ?]
532. Comp. Chryses' prayer, Iliad, i. 37-42.
534. "Aqua vitæ, distilled with the rind of citrons."-Johnson.
535. At a losing game, On losing see note, L'All. 20. Cards were perhaps at their very greatest popularity in England about this time.
540. Radically chagrin and shagreen are the same word. The primitive sense is more discernible in shagreen.
546. [What is meant by the force here?]
548. [What is meant by fainting fears ?
And all the furies issued at the vent.
Belinda burns with more than mortal ire,
And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire.
"Owretched maid!" she spread her hands, and cried,
(While Hampton's echoes "Wretched maid!" re-
plied,)
"Was it for this you took such constant care
The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare ?
For this your locks in paper durance bound?
For this with tort'ring irons wreath'd around?
For this with fillets strain'd your tender head,
And bravely bore the double loads of lead?
Gods! shall the ravisher display your hair,
While the fops envy, and the ladies stare?
Honor forbid! at whose unrivall'd shrine
Ease, pleasure, virtue, all our sex resign.
Methinks already I your tears survey,
Already hear the horrid things they say,
Already see you a degraded toast,
And all your honor in a whisper lost!
How shall I then your helpless fame defend?
"Twill then be infamy to seem your friend!
And shall this prize, th' inestimable prize,
Expos'd through crystal to the gazing eyes,
And heighten'd by the diamond's circling rays,
On that rapacious hand for ever blaze?
Sooner shall grass in Hyde-park Circus grow,
And wits take lodgings in the sound of Bow;
555. Vent is generally a small opening, but not necessarily so. Furies used generally, not specifically, as in Lycidas, 75.
561. Bodkin. See above, 1. 274.
564. Fillet-headband, snood,
565. Curl-papers fastened with lead.
567. Fops. "Fop" and "fopling" and "beau" were the special words at this time for what at other times has been called "buck, 99 66 577. [What word in this line would our present usage omit?] 578. Circling-encircling. So pales for "impales." 580. Hyde-Park Circus. See above, 1. 44.
581, In the sound of Bow, i. e. amongst the "cits," or in any sort of neighborhood to Grub Street. The city was but one large butt for the jests of the "wits;" while its immediate suburbs were the headquarters of that pinched and starved fraternity of scribblers between whom and Pope there was never peace.
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