| |
| BUT anxious cares the pensive nymph opprest, | |
| And secret passions labour’d in her breast. | |
| Not youthful kings in battle seiz’d alive, | |
| Not scornful virgins who their charms survive, | |
| Not ardent lovers robb’d of all their bliss, | 5 |
| Not ancient ladies when refused a kiss, | |
| Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die, | |
| Not Cynthia when her mantua’s pinn’d awry, | |
| E’er felt such rage, resentment, and despair, | |
| As thou, sad Virgin! for thy ravish’d hair. | 10 |
| For, that sad moment, when the Sylphs withdrew, | |
| And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew, | |
| Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite | |
| As ever sullied the fair face of light, | |
| Down to the central earth, his proper scene, | 15 |
| Repair’d to search the gloomy cave of Spleen. | |
| Swift on his sooty pinions flits the Gnome, | |
| And in a vapour reach’d the dismal dome. | |
| No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows, | |
| The dreaded East is all the wind that blows. | 20 |
| Here in a grotto shelter’d close from air, | |
| And screen’d in shades from day’s detested glare, | |
| She sighs for ever on her pensive bed, | |
| Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head. | |
| Two handmaids wait the throne; alike in place, | 25 |
| But diff’ring far in figure and in face. | |
| Here stood Ill-nature, like an ancient maid, | |
| Her wrinkled form in black and white array’d! | |
| With store of prayers for mornings, nights, and noons, | |
| Her hand is fill’d, her bosom with lampoons. | 30 |
| There Affectation, with a sickly mien, | |
| Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen, | |
| Practis’d to lisp, and hang the head aside, | |
| Faints into airs, and languishes with pride; | |
| On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe, | 35 |
| Wrapt in a gown for sickness and for show. | |
| The fair ones feel such maladies as these, | |
| When each new night-dress gives a new disease. | |
| A constant vapour o’er the palace flies | |
| Strange phantoms rising as the mists arise; | 40 |
| Dreadful as hermits’ dreams in haunted shades, | |
| Or bright as visions of expiring maids: | |
| Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires, | |
| Pale spectres, gaping tombs, and purple fires; | |
| Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes, | 45 |
| And crystal domes, and angels in machines. | |
| Unnumber’d throngs on ev’ry side are seen, | |
| Of bodies changed to various forms by Spleen. | |
| Here living Teapots stand, one arm held out, | |
| One bent; the handle this, and that the spout: | 50 |
| A Pipkin there, like Homer’s Tripod walks; | |
| Here sighs a Jar, and there a Goose-pie talks; | |
| Men prove with child, as powerful fancy works, | |
| And maids turn’d bottles call aloud for corks. | |
| Safe pass’d the Gnome thro’ this fantastic band, | 55 |
| A branch of healing spleenwort in his hand. | |
| Then thus address’d the Power—‘Hail, wayward Queen! | |
| Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen: | |
| Parent of Vapours and of female wit, | |
| Who give th’ hysteric or poetic fit, | 60 |
| On various tempers act by various ways, | |
| Make some take physic, others scribble plays; | |
| Who cause the proud their visits to delay, | |
| And send the godly in a pet to pray. | |
| A nymph there is that all your power disdains, | 65 |
| And thousands more in equal mirth maintains. | |
| But oh! if e’er thy Gnome could spoil a grace, | |
| Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face, | |
| Like citron-waters matrons’ cheeks inflame, | |
| Or change complexions at a losing game; | 70 |
| If e’er with airy horns I planted heads, | |
| Or rumpled petticoats, or tumbled beds, | |
| Or caused suspicion when no soul was rude, | |
| Or discomposed the head-dress of a prude, | |
| Or e’er to costive lapdog gave disease, | 75 |
| Which not the tears of brightest eyes could ease, | |
| Hear me, and touch Belinda with chagrin; | |
| That single act gives half the world the spleen.’ | |
| The Goddess, with a discontented air, | |
| Seems to reject him tho’ she grants his prayer. | 80 |
| A wondrous Bag with both her hands she binds, | |
| Like that where once Ulysses held the winds; | |
| There she collects the force of female lungs, | |
| Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues. | |
| A Vial next she fills with fainting fears, | 85 |
| Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears. | |
| The Gnome rejoicing bears her gifts away, | |
| Spreads his black wings, and slowly mounts to day. | |
| Sunk in Thalestris’ arms the nymph he found, | |
| Her eyes dejected, and her hair unbound. | 90 |
| Full o’er their heads the swelling Bag he rent, | |
| And all the Furies issued at the vent. | |
| Belinda burns with more than mortal ire, | |
| And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire. | |
| ‘O wretched maid!’ she spread her hands, and cried | 95 |
| (While Hampton’s echoes, ‘Wretched maid!’ replied), | |
| Was it for this you took such constant care | |
| The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare? | |
| For this your locks in paper durance bound? | |
| For this with torturing irons wreathed around? | 100 |
| For this with fillets strain’d your tender head, | |
| And bravely bore the double loads of lead? | |
| Gods! shall the ravisher display your hair, | |
| While the fops envy, and the ladies stare! | |
| Honour forbid! at whose unrivall’d shrine | 105 |
| Ease, Pleasure, Virtue, all, our sex resign. | |
| Methinks already I your tears survey, | |
| Already hear the horrid things they say, | |
| Already see you a degraded toast, | |
| And all your honour in a whisper lost! | 110 |
| How shall I, then, your hapless fame defend? | |
| ’T will then be infamy to seem your friend! | |
| And shall this prize, th’ inestimable prize, | |
| Exposed thro’ crystal to the gazing eyes, | |
| And heighten’d by the diamond’s circling rays, | 115 |
| On that rapacious hand for ever blaze? | |
| Sooner shall grass in Hyde Park Circus grow, | |
| And Wits take lodgings in the sound of Bow; | |
| Sooner let earth, air, sea, to chaos fall, | |
| Men, monkeys, lapdogs, parrots, perish all!’ | 120 |
| She said; then raging to Sir Plume repairs, | |
| And bids her beau demand the precious hairs | |
| (Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain, | |
| And the nice conduct of a clouded cane): | |
| With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face, | 125 |
| He first the snuff-box open’d, then the case, | |
| And thus broke out—‘My lord, why, what the devil! | |
| Z—ds! damn the Lock! ’fore Gad, you must be civil! | |
| Plague on ’t! ’t is past a jest—nay, prithee, pox! | |
| Give her the hair.’—He spoke, and rapp’d his box. | 130 |
| ‘It grieves me much,’ replied the Peer again, | |
| ‘Who speaks so well should ever speak in vain: | |
| But by this Lock, this sacred Lock, I swear | |
| (Which never more shall join its parted hair; | |
| Which never more its honours shall renew, | 135 |
| Clipp’d from the lovely head where late it grew), | |
| That, while my nostrils draw the vital air, | |
| This hand, which won it, shall for ever wear.’ | |
| He spoke, and speaking, in proud triumph spread | |
| The long-contended honours of her head. | 140 |
| But Umbriel, hateful Gnome, forbears not so; | |
| He breaks the Vial whence the sorrows flow. | |
| Then see! the nymph in beauteous grief appears, | |
| Her eyes half-languishing, half drown’d in tears; | |
| On her heav’d bosom hung her drooping head, | 145 |
| Which with a sigh she rais’d, and thus she said: | |
| ‘For ever curs’d be this detested day, | |
| Which snatch’d my best, my fav’rite curl away! | |
| Happy! ah, ten times happy had I been, | |
| If Hampton Court these eyes had never seen! | 150 |
| Yet am not I the first mistaken maid, | |
| By love of courts to numerous ills betray’d. | |
| O had I rather unadmired remain’d | |
| In some lone isle, or distant northern land; | |
| Where the gilt chariot never marks the way, | 155 |
| Where none learn Ombre, none e’er taste Bohea! | |
| There kept my charms conceal’d from mortal eye, | |
| Like roses, that in deserts bloom and die. | |
| What mov’d my mind with youthful lords to roam? | |
| O had I stay’d, and said my prayers at home; | 160 |
| ’T was this the morning omens seem’d to tell, | |
| Thrice from my trembling hand the patch-box fell; | |
| The tott’ring china shook without a wind; | |
| Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind! | |
| A Sylph, too, warn’d me of the threats of fate, | 165 |
| In mystic visions, now believ’d too late! | |
| See the poor remnants of these slighted hairs! | |
| My hands shall rend what ev’n thy rapine spares. | |
| These, in two sable ringlets taught to break, | |
| Once gave new beauties to the snowy neck; | 170 |
| The sister-lock now sits uncouth alone, | |
| And in its fellow’s fate foresees its own; | |
| Uncurl’d it hangs, the fatal shears demands, | |
| And tempts once more thy sacrilegious hands. | |
| O hadst thou, cruel! been content to seize | 175 |
| Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these!’ | |
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