With hairy springes we the birds betray,
Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey;
Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.
The adventurous baron the bright locks ad-
mired;
He saw, he wish'd, and to the prize aspired.
Resolved to win, he meditates the way,
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover's toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends.
For this, ere Phoebus rose, he had implored 35
Propitious Heaven, and every power adored,
But chiefly Love-to Love an altar built,
Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt.
There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves,
And all the trophies of his former loves;
With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre,
And breathes three amorous sighs to raise the fire:
Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes
Soon to obtain, and long possess the prize:
The powers gave ear, and granted half his prayer;
The rest the winds dispersed in empty air.
But now secure the painted vessel glides,
The sun-beams trembling on the floating tides;
26 And beauty draws us with a single hair. The captivations of tresses had fallen into the common-places of poetry too long to be worthy of so inventive a poet as Pope: and the solid locks which (borrowed from the always unnatural costumes of France) disfigured the human head in that age, were singularly unfit to furnish the image. Hudibras is more rational and more in earnest :
And though it be a two-foot trout,
'Tis with a single hair pull'd out.
While melting music steals upon the sky,
And soften'd sounds along the waters die:
Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play,
Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay :-
All but the sylph: with careful thoughts oppress'd,
The impending wo sat heavy on his breast.
He summons straight his denizens of air;
The lucid squadrons round the sails repair:
Soft o'er the shrouds aërial whispers breathe,
That seem'd but zephyrs to the train beneath.
Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold,
Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold; 60
Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight,
Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light,
Loose to the wind their airy garments flew,
Thin glittering textures of the filmy dew,
Dipp'd in the richest tincture of the skies,
Where light disports in ever-mingling dies;
While every beam new transient colors flings,
Colors that change whene'er they wave their wings.
Amid the circle, on the gilded mast,
Superior by the head, was Ariel placed :
His purple pinions opening to the sun,
He raised his azure wand, and thus begun :-
'Ye sylphs and sylphids, to your chief give ear!
Fays, fairies, genii, elves, and demons, hear!
Ye know the spheres and various tasks assign'd
By laws eternal to the aërial kind.
73 Ye sylphs. The comparison frequently made between the sylph and Shakspeare's Ariel is unfair. If the affected and trifling qualities of the sylphs fade before the vivid activity and natural graces of Shakspeare's spirit, it is to be recollected that their origin, their place, and their purposes, are intentionally different. A French romance, a toilet-box, and
Some in the fields of purest ether play,
And bask and whiten in the blaze of day:
Some guide the course of wandering orbs on high,
Or roll the planets through the boundless sky: 80
Some less refined, beneath the moon's pale light
Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night,
Or suck the mists in grosser air below,
Or dip their pinions in the painted bow,
Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main,
Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain.
Others on earth o'er human race preside,
Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide:
Of these the chief the care of nations own,
And guard with arms divine the British throne.
"Our humbler province is to tend the fair,
Not a less pleasing, though less glorious care;
To save the powder from too rude a gale,
Nor let the imprison'd essences exhale;
To draw fresh colors from the vernal flowers; 95
To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in showers,
A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs,
Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs;
Nay, oft, in dreams, invention we bestow,
To change a flounce, or add a furbelow.
the guardianship of a glittering coquette, would be the death of the delicate Ariel,' with his enchanted bowers, his flights through air and ocean, and his songs on his luxuriant and solitary shore :
Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie :
There I couch. When owls do cry,
On the bat's back I do fly,
After summer, merrily.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
"This day black omens threat the brightest fair That e'er deserved a watchful spirit's care; Some dire disaster, or by force or slight;
But what or where, the fates have wrapp'd in night.
Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, 105
Or some frail China jar receive a flaw;
Or stain her honor, or her new brocade;
Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade;
Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball;
Or whether Heaven has doom'd that Shock must
fall.
Haste then, ye spirits! to your charge repair:
The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care;
The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign;
And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine:
Do thou, Crispissa, tend her favorite lock;
Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock.
To fifty chosen sylphs, of special note, We trust the important charge, the petticoat: Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail, Though stiff with hoops, and arm'd with ribs of
Form a strong line about the silver bound,
And guard the wide circumference around.
Whatever spirit, careless of his charge, His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large, Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins, Be stopp'd in vials, or transfix'd with pins; Or plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie, Or wedged whole ages in a bodkin's eye: Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain,
While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain :
Or alum styptics with contracting power
Shrink his thin essence like a rivel'd flower:
Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel
The giddy motion of the whirling mill;
In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow,
And tremble at the sea that froths below!'
He spoke; the spirits from the sails descend;
Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend;
Some thrid the mazy ringlets of her hair;
Some hang upon the pendents of her ear:
With beating hearts the dire event they wait,
Anxious, and trembling for the birth of fate.
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