'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 honors shall renew, Clipped from the lovely head where late it grew) 136 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 honors of her head. But Umbriel, hateful gnome! forbears not so; 141 He breaks the vial whence the sorrows flow. Then see! the nymph in beauteous grief appears, Her eyes half languishing, half drowned in tears; On her heaved bosom hung her drooping head, 145 130 A sylph, too, warned me of the threats of fate, 165 In mystic visions, now believed too late! Give her the hair,' he spoke, and rapped his box. And burn in Cupid's flames - but burn alive.' 'Restore the lock!' she cries; and all around Restore the lock!' the vaulted roofs rebound. Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain 105 Roared for the handkerchief that caused his pain. But see how oft ambitious aims are crossed, And chiefs contend till all the prize is lost! The lock, obtained with guilt, and kept with pain, In every place is sought, but sought in vain: With such a prize no mortal must be blessed, So Heaven decrees! with Heaven who cam contest? 112 And hence the egregious wizard shall foredoom The fate of Louis and the fall of Rome. 140 Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravished hair, Which adds new glory to the shining sphere! Not all the tresses that fair head can boast, Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost. For, after all the murders of your eye, 145 When, after millions slain, yourself shall die: When those fair suns shall set, as set they must, And all those tresses shall be laid in dust, This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame, And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's Soft were my numbers; who could take offense While pure description held the place of sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme, I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint, 20 * Were others angry: I excused them too; Well might they rage, I gave them but thei: due. JAMES THOMSON (1700–1748) 6 Thomson was a Scotchman who, at the height of Pope's reign, went to seek his fortune in literary London. He arrived in need of a pair of shoes and lost the packet of recommendations which he had tied up in his handkerchief; but he was kindly received by his brother poets, and enjoyed sufficient patronage from the rich to preserve him from actual want. The four parts of The Seasons which appeared in rapid succession (1726-30) made his reputation, and a series of stiff tragedies in blank verse had a lukewarm success on the stage. Politically, he adhered to the opposition and was one of a group, including the poet Collins, which gathered around Lord Lyttleton at Hagley, under the 'precarious patronage' of Frederick, Prince of Wales. Thomson was an indolent man more fat than bard beseems,' luxurious and procrastinating, and the last fifteen years of his life originated little that was important. The Castle of Indolence, which commemorates the Hagley company, was begun in 1733, though not completed until two years before his death. Dull in unfamiliar society, Thomson was loyally and deeply beloved by those who intimately knew him. His warm and truthful delineations of nature and his resource in the older harmonies of English verse helped to inaugurate a new era in poetry. Notwithstanding these tendencies, Pope regarded him with respect and favor. In the next generation, Dr. Johnson abated his prejudice against blank verse in favor of The Seasons, and forgot his hostility to Spenserism in commenting on The Castle of Indolence. 'He thinks always as a man of genius; he [looks round on Nature and on Life with the eye which Nature bestows only on a poet,' was Johnson's summary of his abilities. |