XIX.

"O grievous folly! to heap up estate, "Losing the days you see beneath the sun; "When, sudden, comes blind unrelenting fate, "And gives th' untasted portion you have won, "With ruthless toil, and many a wretch undone, "To those who mock you gone to Pluto's reign, "There with sad ghosts to pine, and shadows dun: "But sure it is of vanities most vain,

"To toil for what you here untoiling may obtain."

XX.

He ceas'd. But still their trembling ears retain'd The deep vibrations of his witching song: That by a kind of magic power, constrain'd To enter in, pell-mell, the listening throng. Heaps pour'd on heaps, and yet they slipt along, In silent ease: as when beneath the beam Of summer-moons, the distant woods among, Or by some flood all silver'd with the gleam, The soft-embodied Fays through airy portal stream.

XXI.

By the smooth demon so it order'd was,

And here his baneful bounty first began:

[pass,

Though some there were who would not further
And his alluring baits suspected han,

The wise distrust the too fair-spoken man,
Yet through the gate they cast a wishful eye :
Not to move on, perdie, is all they can;
For do their very best they cannot fly,

But often each way look, and often sorely sigh.

XXII.

When this the watchful wicked wizzard saw, With sudden spring he leap'd upon them straight; And soon as touch'd by his unhallow'd paw, They found themselves within the cursed gate; Full hard to be repass'd, like that of fate. Not stronger were of old the giant-crew, Who sought to pull high Jove from regal state; Though feeble wretch he seem'd, of sallow hue, Certes, who bides his grasp, will that encounter rue.

XXIII.

For whomsoe'er the villain takes in hand, Their joints unknit, their sinews melt apace; As lithe they grow as any willow-wand, And of their vanish'd force remains no trace; So when a maiden fair of modest grace, In all her buxom blooming May of charms, Is seized in some losel's hot embrace, She waxeth very weakly as she warms, Then sighing yields her up to love's delicious harms.

XXIV.

Wak'd by the crowd, slow from his bench arose,
A comely full-spread porter, swoln with sleep:
His calm, broad, thoughtless aspect breath'd re-
pose;

And in sweet torpor he was plunged deep,

$ 2

He could himself from ceaseless yawning keep : While o'er his eyes the drowsy liquor ran,

Through which his half-wak'd soul would faintly peep,

Then, taking his black staff, he call'd his man, And rous'd himself as much as rouse himself he can.

XXV.

The lad leap'd lightly at his master's call:
He was, to weet, a little roguish page,

Save sleep and play who minded nought at all,
Like most the untaught striplings of his age.
This boy he kept each band to disengage,
Garters and buckles, task for him unfit,
But ill-becoming his grave personage,

And which his portly paunch would not permit, So this same limber page to all performed it.

XXVI.

Mean time the master-porter wide display'd
Great store of caps, of slippers, and of gowns;
Wherewith he those who enter'd in, array'd
Loose, as the breeze that plays along the downs,
And waves the summer-woods when evening
frowns.

O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein,
But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,
And heightens ease with grace. This done, right
fain,

Sir porter set him down, and turn'd to sleep again.

XXVII.

Thus easy rob'd, they to the fountain sped,
That in the middle of the court upthrew
A stream, high-spouting from its liquid bed,
And falling back again in drizzly dew:

There each deep draughts, as deep he thirsted, drew,

It was a fountain of Nepenthe rare :

Whence, as Dan Homer sings, huge pleasaunce And sweet oblivion of vile earthly care;

[grew, Fair gladsome waking thoughts, and joyous dreams more fair.

XXVIII.

This rite perform'd, all inly pleas'd and still, Withouten trump was proclamation made: "Ye sons of Indolence, do what you will: "And wander where you list, thro' hall or glade! "Be no man's pleasure for another staid;

"Let each as likes him best his hours employ, "And curs'd be he who minds his neighbour's

trade!

"Here dwells kind ease and unreproving joy : "He little merits bliss who others can annoy."

XXIX.

Straight of these endless numbers, swarming As thick as idle motes in sunny ray,

[round,

Not one eftsoons in view was to be found,

But every man stroll'd off his own glad way,

Wide o'er this ample court's blank area, With all the lodges that thereto pertain❜d, No living creature could be seen to stray: While solitude, and perfect silence reign'd: So that to think you dreamt you almost was constrain'd.

XXX.

As when a shepherd of the Hebrid Isles,*
Plac'd far amid the melancholy main,
(Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles;
Or that aerial beings sometimes deign
To stand, embodied, to our senses plain,)
Sees on the naked hill, or valley low,
The whilst in ocean Phabus dips his wain,
A vást assembly moving to and fro :

Then all at once in air dissolves the wondrous sków.

XXXI.

Ye gods of quiet and of sleep profound! Whose soft dominion o'er this castle sways, And all the widely-silent places round, Forgive me, if my trembling pen displays What never yet was sung in mortal lays. But how shall I attempt such arduous string, I who have spent my nights and nightly days, In this soul-deadening place, loose-loitering? Ah! how shall I for this uprear my moulted wing?

*Those islands on the western coast of Scotland, called the Hebrides.