Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Alexander Pope. 16881744441. Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady
WHAT beck’ning ghost, along the moonlight shade | |
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade? | |
‘Tis she!—but why that bleeding bosom gored, | |
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword? | |
O, ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell, | 5 |
Is it, in Heav’n, a crime to love too well? | |
To bear too tender or too firm a heart, | |
To act a lover’s or a Roman’s part? | |
Is there no bright reversion in the sky | |
For those who greatly think, or bravely die? | 10 |
Why bade ye else, ye Pow’rs! her soul aspire | |
Above the vulgar flight of low desire? | |
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; | |
The glorious fault of angels and of gods; | |
Thence to their images on earth it flows, | 15 |
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows. | |
Most souls, ’tis true, but peep out once an age, | |
Dull sullen pris’ners in the body’s cage: | |
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years, | |
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres; | 20 |
Like Eastern kings a lazy state they keep, | |
And close confined to their own palace, sleep. | |
From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die) | |
Fate snatch’d her early to the pitying sky. | |
As into air the purer spirits flow, | 25 |
And sep’rate from their kindred dregs below, | |
So flew the soul to its congenial place, | |
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race. | |
But thou, false guardian of a charge too good! | |
Thou, mean deserter of thy brother’s blood! | 30 |
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath, | |
These cheeks now fading at the blast of Death: | |
Cold is that breast which warm’d the world before, | |
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more. | |
Thus, if eternal Justice rules the ball, | 35 |
Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall; | |
On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, | |
And frequent herses shall besiege your gates. | |
There passengers shall stand, and pointing say | |
(While the long fun’rals blacken all the way), | 40 |
‘Lo! these were they whose souls the Furies steel’d | |
And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield.’ | |
Thus unlamented pass the proud away, | |
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day! | |
So perish all whose breast ne’er learn’d to glow | 45 |
For others’ good, or melt at others’ woe! | |
What can atone (O ever-injured shade!) | |
Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid? | |
No friend’s complaint, no kind domestic tear | |
Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier. | 50 |
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, | |
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed, | |
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn’d, | |
By strangers honour’d, and by strangers mourn’d! | |
What tho’ no friends in sable weeds appear, | 55 |
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year, | |
And bear about the mockery of woe | |
To midnight dances, and the public show? | |
What tho’ no weeping Loves thy ashes grace, | |
Nor polish’d marble emulate thy face? | 60 |
What tho’ no sacred earth allow thee room, | |
Nor hallow’d dirge be mutter’d o’er thy tomb? | |
Yet shall thy grave with rising flow’rs be drest, | |
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast: | |
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, | 65 |
There the first roses of the year shall blow; | |
While angels with their silver wings o’ershade | |
The ground now sacred by thy reliques made. | |
So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name, | |
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame. | 70 |
How loved, how honour’d once, avails thee not, | |
To whom related, or by whom begot; | |
A heap of dust alone remains of thee, | |
‘Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be! | |
Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung, | 75 |
Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. | |
Ev’n he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays, | |
Shall shortly want the gen’rous tear he pays; | |
Then from this closing eyes thy form shall part, | |
And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart; | 80 |
Life’s idle business at one gasp be o’er, | |
The Muse forgot, and thou beloved no more! |