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Admir'd, not fear'd; God and his Son except,1
Created thing naught valued he, nor shunn'd;
And with disdainful look thus first began:

'Whence, and what art thou, execrable shape,
That darest, though grim and terrible, advance
Thy miscreated front athwart my way

To yonder gates? through them I mean to pass,
That be assur'd, without leave ask'd of thee:
Retire, or taste thy folly, and learn by proof,
Hell-born, not to contend with spirits of heaven.'
To whom the goblin full of wrath replied:
'Art thou that traitor-angel, art thou he,

Who first broke peace in heaven, and faith, till then
Unbroken: and in proud, rebellious arms,
Drew after him the third part of heaven's sons
Conjur'd against the Highest; for which both thou
And they, outcast from God, are here condemn'd
To waste eternal days in woe and pain?

And reckon'st thou thyself with spirits of heaven,
Hell-doom'd, and breath'st defiance here and scorn
Where I reign king, and, to enrage thee more,
Thy king and lord? Back to thy punishment,
False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings,
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue
Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart
Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before."
So spake the grisly terror, and in shape,
So speaking and so threatening, grew tenfold
More dreadful and deform. On the other side,
Incens'd with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burn'd
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war. Each to the head
Levell'd his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend: and such a frown
Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds,
With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on
Over the Caspian, then stand front to front,
Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid air:
So frown'd the mighty combatants, that hell

Grew darker at their frown; so match'd they stood;
For never but once more was either like

To meet so great a foe: and now great deeds
Had been achiev'd, whereof all hell had rung,
Had not the snaky sorceress, that sat
Fast by hell-gate, and kept the fatal key,

Risen, and with hideous outcry rush'd between.

1 God and His Son except; i. e. being excepted.

2 Ophiuchus; the serpent-bearer, a constellation extending a length of near 40 degrees.

EVE'S LAMENT, ON HEARING THE SENTENCE.

Он unexpected stroke, worse than of death!
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
Thee, native soil! these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of Gods? where I had hope to spend,
Quiet though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both.

O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow-

My early visitation, and my last

MILTON.

At even-which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names !
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?
Thee lastly, nuptial bower! by me adorned
With what to sight or smell was sweet! from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure

And wild? How shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?

THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE.

To their fixed station, all in bright array,
The cherubim descended; on the ground
Gilding meteorous, as evening mist
Risen from a river o'er the marish glides,
And gathers ground fast at the labourer's heel
Homeward returning. High in front advanced,
The brandished sword of God before them blazed,
Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat,
And vapour as the Libyan air adust,
Began to parch that temperate clime; whereat
In either hand the hastening angel caught
Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappeared.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
With dreadful faces thronged, and fiery arms.
Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon:
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.

MILTON.

THE DEATH OF LAUSUS.

DRYDEN'S VIRGIL.

PUBLIUS VIRGILIUS MARO, the most excellent of all the Latin poets, was born near Mantua, A. c. 70. He died at Brundusiam, a. c. 19.

Mezentius, a king of the Tyrrhenians, remarkable for his cruelties, on which account he was expelled by his subjects. He fled to Turnus, who employed him in his wars against the Trojans under Eneas. Lausus, his son, whose character stands distinguished for undaunted bravery and filial piety, fell by the hand of the Trojan leader, in his vain attempt to save his parent's life.

ONCE more the proud Mezentius, with disdain, «
Brandish'd his spear, and rush'd into the plain,
Where tow'ring in the midmost ranks he stood,
Like tall Orion stalking o'er the flood,

(When with his brawny breast he cuts the waves,
His shoulders scarce the topmost billow laves),
Or like a mountain-ash, whose roots are spread,
Deep fix'd in earth-in clouds he hides his head.
The Trojan prince beheld him from afar,
And dauntless undertook the doubtful war.
Collected in his strength, and like a rock
Poised on his base, Mezentius stood the shock.
He stood, and meas'ring first with careful eyes
The space his spear could reach, aloud he cries:
'My strong right hand, and sword, assist my stroke!
(Those only gods Mezentius will invoke);
His armour from the Trojan pirate torn,
By my triumphant Lausus shall be worn.'
He said; and with his utmost force he threw
The massy spear, which, hissing as it flew,

Reach'd the celestial shield: that stopp'd the course;
But, glancing thence, the yet unbroken force
Took a new bent obliquely, and, betwixt
The side and bowels, famed Antores fix'd.
Antores had from Argos travell'd far,
Alcides' friend, and brother of the war;
Till, tired with toils, fair Italy he chose,
And in Evander's palace sought repose.
Now falling by another's wound, his eyes
He cast to heav'n, on Argos thinks, and dies.
The pious Trojan then his jav'lin sent:

The shield gave way: through triple plates it went
Of solid brass, of linen triply roll'd,

And three bull-hides which round the buckler roll'd.
All these it pass'd, resistless in the course,
Transpierced his thigh, and spent its dying force.
The gaping wound gush'd out a crimson flood.
The Trojan, glad with sight of hostile blood,
His falchion drew, to closer fight address'd,
And with new force his fainting foe oppress'd.
His father's peril Lausus view'd with grief:
He sigh'd, he wept, he ran to his relief.
And here, heroic youth, 'tis here I must

To thy immortal memory be just,
And sing an act so noble and so new,
Posterity will scarce believe 'tis true.

Pain'd with his wound, and useless for the fight,
The father sought to save himself by flight;
Encumber'd, slow he dragg'd the spear along,
Which pierced his thigh, and in his buckler hung.
The pious youth, resolved on death, below
The lifted sword, springs forth to face the foe;
Protects his parent, and prevents the blow.
Shouts of applause ran ringing through the field,
To see the son the vanquish'd father shield.
All fired with gen'rous indignation, strive,
And with a storm of darts, to distance drive
The Trojan chief, who, held at bay from far,
On his Vulcanian orb sustain'd the war.

As, when thick hail comes rattling in the wind,
The ploughman, passenger, and lab'ring hind,
For shelter to the neighb'ring covert fly,

Or housed, or safe in hollow caverns, lie;

But that o'erblown, when heav'n above them smiles,
Return to travail, and renew their toils:

Æneas thus, o'erwhelm'd on ev'ry side,

The storm of darts, undaunted, did abide;

And thus to Lausus loud with friendly threat'ning cried: 'Why wilt thou rush to certain death, and rage

In rash attempts, beyond thy tender age,
Betray'd by pious love?-Nor, thus forborne,
The youth desists, but with insulting scorn

Provokes the ling'ring prince, whose patience, tired,
Gave plaee; and all his breast with fury fired.
For now the Fates prepared their sharpen'd shears;
And lifted high the flaming sword appears,
Which, full descending with a frightful sway,
Through shield and corslet forced th' impetuous way,
And buried deep in his fair bosom lay.

The purple streams through the thin armour strove,
And drench'd the embroider'd coat his mother wove;
And life at length forsook his heaving heart,
Loth from so sweet a mansion to depart.

But when, with blood and paleness all o'erspread,
The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead,
He grieved; he wept, (the sight an image brought
Of his own filial love-a sadly pleasing thought),
Then stretch'd his hand to hold him up, and said,
'Poor hapless youth! what praises can be paid
To love so great, to such transcendent store
Of early worth, and sure presage of more?
Accept whate'er Æneas can afford:
Untouch'd thy arms, untaken be thy sword;
And all that pleased thee living, still remain
Inviolate, and sacred to the slain.

Thy body on thy parents I bestow,

To rest thy soul; at least if shadows know,
Or have a sense of human things below.
There to thy fellow-ghosts with glory tell
'Twas by the great Æneas' hand I fell.'
With this, his distant friends he beckons near;
Provokes their duty, and prevents their fear:
Himself assists to lift him from the ground,

With clotted locks, and blood that well'd from out the wound.

HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.

POPE'S HOMER.

HOMER, the father of Greek poets, flourished about A. c. 900. Seven cities disputed the glory of having given him birth; Smyrna, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, and Athens. The opinion of antiquity seems generally to lean towards Chios or Smyrna.

Hector, the greatest of Trojan heroes, was the son of Priam and Hecuba, and married to Andromache. He is described not only as a bold and gallant warrior, but as a hero ennobled by all the more tender and humane virtues. The most tender passage in the "Iliad" is the one here given, in which Hector, before going to battle, takes leave of his wife and child. As the earliest specimen of conjugal devotion exemplified in poetry, to say nothing of its intrinsic poetical beauty, the passage now quoted is beyond all praise.

SILENT the warrior smiled, and pleased, resign'd
To tender passions all his mighty mind:
His beauteous princess cast a mournful look,
Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke;
Her bosom labour'd with a boding sigh,
And the big tear stood trembling in her eye.

"Too daring prince! ah, whither dost thou run!
Ah, too forgetful of thy wife and son!

And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be,
A widow I, an helpless orphan he!

For sure such courage length of life denies,
And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice.
Greece in her single heroes strove in vain ;
Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain!
Oh, grant me, gods! ere Hector meets his doom,
All I can ask of Heaven, an early tomb!
So shall my days in one sad tenor run,
And end with sorrows as they first begun.
Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share:
Oh, prove a husband's and a father's care!
That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy,
Where yon wild fig-trees join the wall of Troy:
Thou, from this tower defend the important post
There Agamemnon points his dreadful host,
That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain,
And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train.
Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack had given,
Or led by hopes, or dictated from Heaven.
Let others in the field their arms employ,
But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy."

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