The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings

by Alexander Pope

  The subject of debate, a townsman slain.

  One pleads the fine discharged, which one denied,

  580 And bade the public and the laws decide;

  The witness is produced on either hand:

  For this, or that, the partial people stand.

  Th’ appointed heralds still the noisy bands,

  And form a ring, with sceptres in their hands,

  On seats of stone, within the sacred place,

  The rev’rend elders nodded o’er the case;

  Alternate, each th’ attesting sceptre took,

  And rising solemn, each his sentence spoke.

  Two golden talents lay amidst, in sight,

  590 The prize of him who best adjudged the right.

  Another part (a prospect differing far)

  Glowed with refulgent arms and horrid war.

  Two mighty hosts a leaguered town embrace,

  And one would pillage, one would burn the place.

  Meantime the townsmen, armed with silent care,

  A secret ambush on the foe prepare,

  Their wives, their children, and the watchful band

  Of trembling parents on the turrets stand.

  They march, by Pallas and by Mars made bold;

  600 Gold were the gods, their radiant garments gold,

  And gold their armour: these the squadron led,

  August, divine, superior by the head!

  A place for ambush fit they found, and stood,

  Covered with shields, beside a silver flood.

  Two spies at distance lurk, and watchful seem

  If sheep or oxen seek the winding stream.

  Soon the white flocks proceeded o’er the plains,

  And steers slow-moving, and two shepherd swains;

  Behind them, piping on their reeds, they go,

  610 Nor fear an ambush, nor suspect a foe.

  In arms the glitt’ring squadron rising round

  Rush sudden; hills of slaughter heap the ground;

  Whole flocks and herds lie bleeding on the plains,

  And, all amidst them, dead, the shepherd swains!

  The bellowing oxen the besiegers hear;

  They rise, take horse, approach, and meet the war;

  They fight, they fall, beside the silver flood;

  The waving silver seemed to blush with blood.

  There Tumult, there Contention stood confessed:

  620 One reared a dagger at a captive’s breast;

  One held a living foe, that freshly bled

  With new-made wounds, another dragged a dead;

  Now here, now there, the carcasses they tore.

  Fate stalked amidst them, grim with human gore,

  And the whole war came out, and met the eye,

  And each bold figure seemed to live, or die.

  A field deep furrowed next the god designed,

  The third time laboured by the sweating hind;

  The shining shares full many ploughmen guide,

  630 And turn their crooked yokes on every side.

  Still as at either end they wheel around,

  The master meets ’em with his goblet crowned;

  The hearty draught rewards, renews their toil,

  Then back the turning ploughshares cleave the soil.

  Behind, the rising earth in ridges rolled,

  And sable looked, though formed of molten gold.

  Another field rose high with waving grain;

  With bended sickles stand the reaper train.

  Here stretched in ranks the levelled swarths are found,

  640 Sheaves heaped on sheaves here thicken up the ground.

  With sweeping stroke the mowers strew the lands;

  The gath’rers follow, and collect in bands;

  And last the children, in whose arms are borne

  (Too short to gripe them) the brown sheaves of corn.

  The rustic monarch of the field descries

  With silent glee, the heaps around him rise.

  A ready banquet on the turf is laid,

  Beneath an ample oak’s expanded shade.

  The victim ox the sturdy youth prepare:

  650 The reaper’s due repast, the woman’s care.

  Next, ripe in yellow gold, a vineyard shines,

  Bent with the pond’rous harvest of its vines;

  A deeper dye the dangling clusters show,

  And curled on silver props, in order glow;

  A darker metal mixed, intrenched the place,

  And pales of glitt’ring tin th’ enclosure grace.

  To this, one pathway gently winding leads,

  Where march a train with baskets on their heads,

  (Fair maids, and blooming youths) that smiling bear

  660 The purple product of th’ autumnal year.

  To these a youth awakes the warbling strings,

  Whose tender lay the fate of Linus sings;

  In measured dance behind him move the train,

  Tune soft the voice, and answer to the strain.

  Here, herds of oxen march, erect and bold,

  Rear high their horns, and seem to low in gold,

  And speed to meadows on whose sounding shores

  A rapid torrent through the rushes roars:

  Four golden herdsmen as their guardians stand,

  670 And nine sour dogs complete the rustic band.

  Two lions rushing from the wood appeared

  And seized a bull, the master of the herd;

  He roared: in vain the dogs, the men withstood;

  They tore his flesh, and drank the sable blood.

  The dogs (oft cheered in vain) desert the prey,

  Dread the grim terrors, and at distance bay.

  Next this, the eye the art of Vulcan leads

  Deep through fair forests, and a length of meads,

  And stalls, and folds, and scattered cots between;

  680 And fleecy flocks, that whiten all the scene.

  A figured dance succeeds: such once was seen

  In lofty Gnossus for the Cretan queen,

  Formed by Daedalean art. A comely band

  Of youths and maidens, bounding hand in hand:

  The maids in soft simars of linen dressed,

  The youths all graceful in the glossy vest;

  Of those the locks with flow’ry wreath inrolled,

  Of these the sides adorned with swords of gold,

  That glitt’ring gay, from silver belts depend.

  690 Now all at once they rise, at once descend,

  With well-taught feet: now shape, in oblique ways

  Confus’dly regular, the moving maze;

  Now forth at once, too swift for sight, they spring,

  And undistinguished blend the flying ring:

  So whirls a wheel, in giddy circle tossed,

  And rapid as it runs, the single spokes are lost.

  The gazing multitudes admire around;

  Two active tumblers in the centre bound;

  Now high, now low, their pliant limbs they bend,

  700 And gen’ral songs the sprightly revel end.

  Thus the broad shield complete the artist crowned

  With his last hand, and poured the ocean round:

  In living silver seemed the waves to roll,

  And beat the buckler’s verge, and bound the whole.

  This done, whate’er a warrior’s use requires

  He forged; the cuirass that outshone the fires,

  The greaves of ductile tin, the helm impressed

  With various sculpture, and the golden crest.

  At Thetis’ feet the finished labour lay;

  710 She, as a falcon cuts th’ aerial way,

  Swift from Olympus’ snowy summit flies,

  And bears the blazing present through the skies.

  [The reception of Hector’s body in Troy, Book XXIV]

  In thronging crowds they issue to the plains,

  Nor man, nor woman, in the walls remains.

  In ev’
ry face the self-same grief is shown,

  And Troy sends forth one universal groan.

  At Scaea’s gates they meet the mourning wain,

  Hang on the wheels, and grovel round the slain.

  The wife and mother, frantic with despair,

  Kiss his pale cheek, and rend their scattered hair:

  890 Thus wildly wailing, at the gates they lay,

  And here had sighed and sorrowed out the day;

  But godlike Priam from the chariot rose:

  ‘Forbear (he cried) this violence of woes;

  First to the palace let the car proceed,

  Then pour your boundless sorrows o’er the dead.’

  The waves of people at his word divide;

  Slow rolls the chariot through the foll’wing tide.

  Ev’n to the palace the sad pomp they wait:

  They weep, and place him on the bed of state.

  900 A melancholy choir attend around

  With plaintive sighs, and music’s solemn sound:

  Alternately they sing, alternate flow

  Th’ obedient tears, melodious in their woe,

  While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart,

  And nature speaks at ev’ry pause of art.

  First to the corse the weeping consort flew;

  Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw,

  ‘And oh my Hector! Oh my lord! (she cries)

  Snatched in thy bloom from these desiring eyes!

  910 Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone!

  And I abandoned, desolate, alone!

  An only son, once comfort of our pains,

  Sad product now of hapless love, remains!

  Never to manly age that son shall rise,

  Or with increasing graces glad my eyes:

  For Ilion now (her great defender slain)

  Shall sink, a smoking ruin on the plain.

  Who now protects her wives with guardian care?

  Who saves her infants from the rage of war?

  920 Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o’er

  (Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore!

  Thou too, my son! to barb’rous climes shalt go,

  The sad companion of thy mother’s woe,

  Driv’n hence a slave before the victor’s sword,

  Condemned to toil for some inhuman lord,

  Or else some Greek whose father pressed the plain,

  Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain,

  In Hector’s blood his vengeance shall enjoy,

  And hurl thee headlong from the tow’rs of Troy;

  930 For thy stern father never spared a foe:

  Thence all these tears, and all this scene of woe!

  Thence many evils his sad parents bore,

  His parents many, but his consort more.

  Why gav’st thou not to me thy dying hand?

  And why received not I thy last command?

  Some word thou would’st have spoke, which sadly dear,

  My soul might keep, or utter with a tear;

  Which never, never could be lost in air,

  Fixed in my heart, and oft repeated there!’

  940 Thus to her weeping maids she makes her moan;

  Her weeping handmaids echo groan for groan.

  The mournful mother next sustains her part:

  ‘O thou, the best, the dearest to my heart!

  Of all my race thou most by heaven approved,

  And by th’ immortals ev’n in death belov’d!

  While all my other sons in barb’rous bands

  Achilles bound, and sold to foreign lands,

  This felt no chains, but went a glorious ghost,

  Free, and a hero, to the Stygian coast.

  950 Sentenced, ’tis true, by his inhuman doom,

  Thy noble corse was dragged around the tomb

  (The tomb of him thy warlike arm had slain);

  Ungen’rous insult, impotent and vain!

  Yet glow’st thou fresh with ev’ry living grace;

  No mark of pain, or violence of face:

  Rosy and fair! as Phoebus’ silver bow

  Dismissed thee gently to the shades below.’

  Thus spoke the dame, and melted into tears.

  Sad Helen next in pomp of grief appears;

  960 Fast from the shining sluices of her eyes

  Fall the round crystal drops, while thus she cries:

  ‘Ah, dearest friend! in whom the gods had joined

  The mildest manners with the bravest mind!

  Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o’er

  Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore,

  (O had I perished, ere that form divine

  Seduced this soft, this easy heart of mine!)

  Yet was it ne’er my fate, from thee to find

  A deed ungentle, or a word unkind.

  970 When others cursed the authoress of their woe,

  Thy pity checked my sorrows in their flow.

  If some proud brother eyed me with disdain,

  Or scornful sister with her sweeping train,

  Thy gentle accents softened all my pain.

  For thee I mourn, and mourn myself in thee,

  The wretched source of all this misery.

  The fate I caused, for ever I bemoan;

  Sad Helen has no friend now thou art gone!

  Through Troy’s wide streets abandoned shall I roam,

  980 In Troy deserted, as abhorred at home!’

  So spoke the fair, with sorrow-streaming eye;

  Distressful beauty melts each stander-by.

  On all around th’ infectious sorrow grows,

  But Priam checked the torrent as it rose:

  ‘Perform, ye Trojans! what the rites require,

  And fell the forests for a fun’ral pyre;

  Twelve days, nor foes, nor secret ambush dread;

  Achilles grants these honours to the dead.’

  He spoke; and at his word, the Trojan train

  990 Their mules and oxen harness to the wain,

  Pour through the gates, and felled from Ida’s crown,

  Roll back the gathered forests to the town.

  These toils continue nine succeeding days,

  And high in air a sylvan structure raise.

  But when the tenth fair morn began to shine,

  Forth to the pile was borne the man divine,

  And placed aloft; while all, with streaming eyes,

  Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise.

  Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn,

  1000 With rosy lustre streaked the dewy lawn,

  Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre,

  And quench with wine the yet remaining fire.

  The snowy bones his friends and brothers place

  (With tears collected) in a golden vase;

  The golden vase in purple palls they rolled

  Of softest texture, and inwrought with gold.

  Last o’er the urn the sacred earth they spread,

  And raised the tomb, memorial of the dead.

  (Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done,

  1010 Watched from the rising to the setting sun.)

  All Troy then moves to Priam’s court again,

  A solemn, silent, melancholy train:

  Assembled there, from pious toil they rest,

  And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast.

  Such honours Ilion to her hero paid,

  And peaceful slept the mighty Hector’s shade.

  THE END OF THE ILIAD

  LATER POEMS

  [TWO EPIGRAMS]

  Epigram. Engraved on the Collar of a Dog which I gave to his Royal Highness

  I am his Highness’ dog at Kew;

  Pray tell me sir, whose dog are you?

  Epitaph. Intended for Sir Isaac Newton, in Westminster Abbey

  Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night.

  God said, ‘Let Newton be!’ and all was light.
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  An Essay on Man in Four Epistles to Henry St John Lord Bolingbroke

  The Design

  Having proposed to write some pieces on human life and manners, such as (to use my Lord Bacon’s expression) ‘come home to men’s business and bosoms’, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering Man in the abstract, his Nature and his State; since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being.

  The science of human nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points; there are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the anatomy of the mind as in that of the body: more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these last, and, I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice, more than advanced the theory, of morality. If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect system of ethics.

  This I might have done in prose; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards. The other may seem odd, but it is true: I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions, depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning. If any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity.

  What is now published, is only to be considered as a general map of MAN, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connection, but leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow. Consequently, these Epistles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progress) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the passage. To deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable.