The meeting points the facred hair diffever
From the fair head, for ever, and for ever!

Then flash'd the livid lightnings from her eyes,
And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.
Not louder fhrieks to pitying heav'n are cast,
When husband, or when lapdogs breathe their laft;
Or when rich China veffels, fall'n from high,
In glitt'ring duft, and painted fragments lie!

Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine,
(The victor cry'd) the glorious prize is mine!
While fish in freams, or birds delight in air,
Or in a coach and fix, the British fair;
As long as Atalantis fhall be read,

Or the small pillow grace a lady's bed;
While vifits shall be paid on folemn days,
When num'rous wax-lights in bright order blaze;
While nymphs take treats, or affignations give,
So long my honour, name, and praise fhall live!
What time wou'd spare, from steel receives its
date,

And monuments, like men, fubmit to fate!
Steel could the labour of the Gods deftroy,
And strike to duft th' imperial tow'rs of Troy;

Steel

Steel could the works of mortal pride confound,
And hew triumphal arches to the ground.

What wonder then, fair nymph! thy hairs fhould feel

The conqu'ring force of unrefifted feel?

THE

RAPE of the LOCK

B

CANTO IV.

UT anxious cares the penfive nymph oppreft,

And fecret paffions labour'd in her breast.

Not youthful Kings in battel feiz'd alive,

Not fcornful virgins who their charms furvive,
Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss,
Not ancient Ladies when refuss'd a kiss,

Nor tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,

Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry,
E'er felt fuch rage, refentment and despair,

As thou, fad virgin! for thy ravish'd hair.

For, that fad moment, when the Sylphs withdrew, And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew, Umbriel, a dufky, melancholy fprite

As ever fully'd the fair face of light,

Down

Down to the central earth, his proper fcene,
Repairs to fearch the goomy cave of Spleen.

Swift on his footy pinions flits the Gnome,
And in a vapour reach'd the dismal dome.
No chearful breeze this fullen region knows,
The dreaded Eaft is all the wind that blows,
Here, in a grotto, fhelter'd clofe from air,
And fcreen'd in fhades from days detefted glare,
She fighs for ever on her penfive bed

Pain at her fide, and Megrim at her head.

Two handmaids wait the throne: alike in place,

But diff'ring far in figure and in face.

Here food Ill-nature like an ancient maid,

Her wrinkled form in black and white array'd;
With store of prayers for mornings, nights, and moons
Her hand is fill'd; her bofom with lampoons.

There Affectation, with a fickly mien,

Shows in her cheek the rofes of eighteen,
Practis'd to lifp, and hang the head afide,'
Faints into airs, and languishes with pride;
On the rich quilt, finks with becoming woe,'
Wrapt in a gown, for fickness and for fhow.
The fair ones feel fuch maladies as thefe,
When each new night-drefs gives a new difeafe:
E 2
A con

A conftant vapour o'er the palace flies;
Strange phantoms rifing as the mifts arife;
Dreadful, as hermit's dreams in haunted fhades,
Or bright, as vifions of expiring maids.

Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires,
Pale fpectres, gaping tombs, and purple fires;
Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes,
And cryftal domes, and Angels in machines,

Unnumber'd throngs on every fide are feen, Of bodies chang'd to various forms by fpleen. Here living teapots ftand, one arm held out, One bent; the handle this, and that the spout: A pipkin there like * Homer's Tripod walks, Here fighs a jar, and there a goofe-pye talks; Men prove with child, as pow'rful fancy works, And maids turn'd bottles, call aloud for corks.

Safe paft the Gnome thro' this fantastic band,

branch of healing fpleenwort in his hand.

Then thus address'd the pow'r

Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen:

Hail wayward

[Queen!

Parent of vapours and of female wit,

Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit,

*See Hom, Iliad 18. of Vulcan's walking Tripeds.