304

POPE.

FROM 86 THE TEMPLE OF FAME."1

THE FOUR FRONTS OF THE TEMPLE.

Westward, a sumptuous frontispiece appear'd,
On Doric2 pillars of white marble rear'd,
Crown'd with an architrave of antique mould,
And sculpture rising on the roughen'd gold.
In shaggy spoils here Theseus3 was beheld,
And Perseus' dreadful with Minerva's shield:
There great Alcides, stooping with his toil,
Rests on his club, and holds th' Hesperian spoil:
Here Orpheus sings; trees moving to the sound
Start from their roots, and form a shade around:
Amphion there the loud creating lyre

Strikes, and behold a sudden Thebes aspire!
Cythæron's echoes answer to his call,

And half the mountain rolls into a wall:

There might you see the lengthening spires ascend,
The domes swell up, the widening arches bend,
The growing towers like exhalations rise,
And the huge columns heave into the skies.
The eastern front was glorious to behold,

With diamond flaming, and Barbaric gold.

There Ninus shone, who spread th' Assyrian fame,
And the great founder of the Persian name :10
There in long robes the royal Magi stand,

Grave Zoroaster waves the circling wand:

The sage Chaldæans rob'd in white appear'd,

And Brachmans, deep in desert woods rever'd.

These stopp'd the Moon, and call'd th' unbodied shades

To midnight banquets in the glimmering glades;

Made visionary fabrics round them rise,

And airy spectres skim before their eyes.

1 The idea of the poem is taken from Chaucer's "House of Fame," and, though greatly altered in design, is interspersed with close imitations of the original.

Doric was the architecture appropriated to the honour of heroes.

The Athenian king and legislator had been the destroyer of robbers and wild beasts. The head of the Gorgon Medusa, slain by Perseus, was placed in the Aegis of Minerva. -Ovid, Met. iv. 616, &c.

Hercules; one of his twelve labours was to obtain the golden apples of the gardens of the Hesperides. In the Farnese statue of the god he holds the apples in his hand. Te critics find fault with Pope in mentioning so minute a circumstance of the statue, while he omits its greater attributes.

See note 3, p. 186. Orpheus was fabled to move the trees by his music. Ovid, Met. xi. Virg. Georg. iv. 454. Hor. Ars Poet, 391.

The charms of Amphion's lyre caused the stones to leap to build the walls of Thebes. Hor. Odes, iii. 11, 2. Ars Poet, 394. Mount Cithaeron was the southern boundary of Boeotia, of which Thebes was the capital.

A phrase from Virg. Aen. ii. 504. So Milton, Par. Lost, ii. 4, "Barbaric pearl and gold." Ninus, the alleged founder of the Assyrian empire.

10 Cyrus.--Zoroaster was the founder or reformer of the ancient Persian religion of fire, of which the Magi were the priests. The wand or rod is the instrument of a magician or of a priest -Chaldeans, the Babylonian, Brachmans, the Indian, magicians and astrolo gers.-Confucius (Cong fu tzce), the legislator and philosopher of China, supposed to be nearly contemporary with Pythagoras,

Of talismans and sigils knew the power,
And careful watch'd the planetary hour.
Superior, and alone, Confucius stood,
Who taught that useful science, to be good.
But on the south, a long majestic race
Of Egypt's priests the gilded niches grace,
Who measur'd Earth, describ'd the starry spheres,
And trac'd the long records of lunar years.'
High on his car Sesostris struck my view,
Whom sceptre'd slaves in golden harness drew:
His hands a bow and pointed javelin hold;
His giant limbs are arm'd in scales of gold.
Between the statues obelisks were plac'd,
And the learn'd walls with hieroglyphics grac'd.
Of Gothic structure was the northern side,
O'erwrought with ornaments of barbarous pride.
There huge Colosses rose, with trophies crown'd,
And Runic characters were grav'd around.
There sat Zamolxis with erected eyes,
And Odin here in mimic trances dies.

There on rude iron columns, smear'd with blood,
The horrid forms of Scythian heroes stood,

Druids and bards (their once loud harps unstrung),
And youths that died to be by poets sung.
These and a thousand more of doubtful fame,
To whom old fables gave a lasting name,
In ranks adorn'd the temple's outward face;
The wall in lustre and effect like glass,
Which, o'er each object casting various dyes,
Enlarges some, and others multiplies:
Nor void of emblem was the mystic wall,
For thus romantic Fame increases all.

HONEST FAME.

Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favours call;
She comes unlook'd for, if she comes at all.
But if the purchase costs so dear a price
As soothing Folly, or exalting Vice:

The learning of the ancient Egyptians consisted in geometry, astronomy, and history. -Many ancient nations used the lunar year in chronology.-The era of the Egyptian conqueror Sesostris is scarcely ascertained; he is said to have yoked in his chariot the monarchs he vanquished.

2 The monuments of the northern nations were huge tumuli, or immense stones, sculp tured with the Runic or Scandinavian characters.-Zamolxis was the disciple of Pythagoras, who taught the immortality of the soul to the Scythians."-" Odin or Woden, the legislator, hero, and deity of the Gothic nations." Druids and Bards, the priests and poets of the Gothic and Celtic religion. The northern mythology is in many of its features sublime and terrible. "The wall in lustre," &c. These lines form an expansion of Chaucer's image.

The four fronts of the temple are opposite to the different quarters of the world, to signify the universality of access to Fame by all nations. The idea of the allegorical sculptures is common in poetry from Homer's Shield of Achilles downward.-Compare Chaucer's Temple of Mars, see p. 8, supra

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Oh! if the Muse must flatter lawless sway,
And follow still where Fortune leads the way;
Or if no basis bear my rising name,

But the fall'n ruins of another's fame;

Then teach me, Heaven! to scorn the guilty bays, Drive from my breast that wretched lust of praise; Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown;

Oh, grant an honest fame, or grant me none !

BLESSING OF A CONCEALED Future.

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar, Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore. What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never Is, but always To be blest: The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

UNIVERSALITY OF GOD IN NATURE.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That chang'd through all, and yet in all the same;
Great in the Earth, as in th' ethereal frame;

Warms in the Sun, refreshes in the breeze,

Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent;
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;

Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,

As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:

To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

SYNTHESIS OF HUMAN LOVE.

God loves from whole to parts: but human soul
Must rise from individual to the whole.

Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebbie stirs the peaceful lake;
The centre mov'd, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads;
Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace;
His country next; and next all human race;
Wide and more wide, th' o'erflowings of the mind
Take every creature in, of every kind;

Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest,
And Heaven beholds its image in his breast.

FROM

MESSIAH."

A SACRED ECLOGUE IN IMITATION OF VIRGIL'S POLLIO.

Ye nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus and th' Aonian maids,1
Delight no more.-O thou my voice inspire
Who touch'd Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire!2

Rapt into future times, the bard begun :
A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a Son 13
From Jesse's root behold a branch arise,*
Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies:
Th' ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descends the mystic Dove.
Ye Heavens! from high the dewy nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly shower!
The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid,"
From storm a shelter, and from heat a shade.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail;
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale ;7
Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,
And white-rob'd Innocence from Heaven descend.
Swift fly the years, and rise th' expected morn!
Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!

1 See note 5, p. 191, and note 9, p. 206. Pindus, the range of mountains between Epirus and Thessaly, sacred to the Muses.

2 Is. vi. 6, 7. The ode embodies the passages of Isaiah that bear a resemblance to the imagery in Pollio.

• Is. xxv. 4.

3 Is. vii. 14; ix. 6.

4 Is. xi. 1.

5 Is. xlv. 8. 7 Is. ix. 7; ancient fraud, i. e. of the Serpent.-Warburton.

See, Nature hastes her earliest wreathes to bring,
With all the incense of the breathing spring:1
See lofty Lebanon his head advance,2

See, nodding forests on the mountains dance :
See, spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise,
And Carmel's flowery top perfumes the skies!
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers;
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears !3
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply,
The rocks proclaim th' approaching Deity.
Lo, Earth receives him from the bending skies!
Sink down, ye mountains! and ye valleys, rise l
With heads declin'd, ye cedars, homage pay!
Be smooth, ye rocks! ye rapid floods, give way!
The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold:
Hear him, ye deaf! and all ye blind, behold!*

The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe.
No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear;
From every face he wipes off every tear.
In adamantine chains shall Death be bound,5
And Hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound.

*

No more shall nation against nation rise,"
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,
Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover'd o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a plow-share end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-liv'd sire begun;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,
And the same hand that sow'd, shall reap the field.
The swain in barren deserts with surprise
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise ;8
And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy valleys, once perplex'd with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn:

To leafless shrubs the flowery palms succeed,
And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,"
And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead:

18. xxxv. 1. Is. xxv. 8. Is. xi. b.

2 Is. Ix. 13.
Is. ii. 4.

3 is. xl. 3, 4.

7 Is. lxv. 21, 22.

Is. xxxv. 5, 6; xliii. 18.

8 Is. lv. 13; xxxv. 7.