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FROM THE RAPE OF THE LOCK.

THE TOILET.

And now, unveil'd, the toilet stands display'd,
Each silver vase in mystic order laid.

First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncover'd, the cosmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;
The inferior priestess, at her altar's side,
Trembling, begins the sacred rites of Pride.
Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil.
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
The tortoise here and elephant unite,

Transform'd to combs, the speckled and the white.
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches,1 Bibles, billet-doux.
Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms,
Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face:
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,
And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
The busy sylphs2 surround their darling care:
These set the head, and those divide the hair;
Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown;
And Betty's praised for labours not her own.

FROM THE TEMPLE OF FAME.

THE FOUR FRONTS OF THE TEMPLE.

Westward, a sumptuous frontispiece appear'd,
On Doric pillars of white marble rear'd,
Crown'd with an architrave of antique mould,

1 Strangely among our grandmothers reckoned ornaments to beauty.

2 Spirits of the air, in the Rosicrucian philosophy: from silphe, Gr., a kind of beetle or a moth supposed to renew its youth like the phoenix. The adoption of the sylph machinery in this poem has been reckoned one of the happiest efforts of Pope's invention. The Toilet was humorously translated into Latin hexameters by Pope's friend

Parnell.

3 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.

4 Doric was the architecture appropriated to the honour of heroes.

FROM THE TEMPLE OF FAME.

And sculpture rising on the roughen'd gold.
In shaggy spoils here Theseus1 was beheld,
And Perseus2 dreadful with Minerva's shield:
There great Alcides, stooping with his toil,
Rests on his club, and holds the 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

5

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 the Assyrian fame,
And the great founder of the Persian name:
There in long robes the royal Magi stand,
Grave Zoroaster waves the circling wand:

The sage Chaldeans robed in white appear'd,

And Brachmans, deep in desert woods revered.

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

To midnight banquets in the glimmering glades;

Made visionary fabrics round them rise,
And airy spectres skim before their eyes.
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, described the starry spheres,

1 The Athenian king and legislator had been the destroyer of robbers and wild beasts.

2 The head of the Gorgon Medusa, slain by Perseus, was placed in the Aegis of Minerva. Ovid, Met. iv. 616, etc.

3 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 ais hard. The critics find fault with Pope in mentioning so minute a circumstance of the statue, while he omits its greater attributes.

4 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. Árs Poet. 394Mount 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,

and gold.'

7 Ninus, the alleged founder of the Assyrian empire.

"Barbaric pearl

8 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 astrologers.-Confucius (Cong-fu-tzce), the legislator and philosopher of China, supposed to be nearly contemporary with Pythagoras.

And traced the long records of lunar years.1
High on his car Sesostris struck my view,
Whom scepter'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 placed,
And the learn'd walls with hieroglyphics graced.
Of Gothic structure was the northern side,
O'erwrought with ornaments of barbarous pride.
There huge Colosses rose, with trophies crown'd,2
And Runic characters were graved 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:

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 !

1 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, sculptured 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," etc. 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.

FROM THE ESSAY ON MAN.

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FROM THE ESSAY ON MAN.

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?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised 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 confined 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 changed through all, and yet in all the same;
Great in the earth, as in the 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 pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
The centre moved, 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 the 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 !3
From Jesse's root behold a branch arise,*
Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies :
The 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-robed Innocence from Heaven descend.
Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn!
Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!
See nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,
With all the incense of the breathing spring:"
See lofty Lebanon his head advance,9
See, nodding forests on the mountains dance:
See, spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise,
And Carmel's flowery top perfumes the skies!

1 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. 3 Is. vii. 14; ix. 6.

4 Is. xi. I.

7 Is. ix. 7; ancient fraud, i. e. of the Serpent.

5 Is. xlv. 8.

8 Is. XXXV. I.

6 Is. xxv. 4-
9 Is. lx. 13.

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