Fainting, gasping, trembling, crying,
Panting, groaning, speechless, dying;
Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say,
'Be not fearful, come away!""

Flatman had probably drawn from the same fountain, the Ode of Adrian:—

"Animula vagula, blandula,

Hospes, comesque corporis,
Quæ nunc abibis in loca?
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis joca."

Thus imitated by Prior:

Poor little pretty, fluttering thing,

Must we no longer live together?

And dost thou prune thy trembling wing

To take thy flight thou know'st not whither?

Thy humorous vein, thy pleasing folly,

Lies all neglected, all forgot;

And, pensive, wavering, melancholy,

Thou dread'st and hop'st thou know'st not what."

And by Pope, who sent the following to Steele for the Spectator:

Adriani Morientis ad Animam.

"Ah, fleeting spirit! wandering fire,

That long hast warm'd my tender breast,
Must thou no more this frame inspire?

No more a pleasing, cheerful guest?
Whither, ah, whither art thou flying,

To what dark, undiscover'd shore?

Thou seem'st all trembling, shivering, dying,

And wit and humour are no more.'

Pope's superiority to all his contemporaries is strikingly evident whenever he contests with them on any particular theme.]

178

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL.

ODE.

I.

VITAL spark of heavenly flame!

Quit, oh quit this mortal frame !
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!

II.

Hark! they whisper; angels say,
"Sister Spirit, come away!"
What is this absorbs me quite ?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my Soul, can this be death?

III.

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!

O Grave! where is thy victory?

O Death! where is thy sting?

5

10

15

[Steele in a letter to Pope, December 4, 1712, requested the poet to "make an Ode as of a cheerful dying spirit, that is to say, the Emperor Adrian's Animula vagula, put into two or three stanzas for music." Pope sent the above: "You have it (as Cowley calls it) just warm from the brain. It came to me the first moment I waked this morning; yet you will see it was not so absolutely inspiration, but that I had in my head not only the verses of Adrian, but the fine fragment of Sappho." He must also have recollected a piece by Flatman (a poet then not so obscure as to be unknown to Pope), which contains these lines:

"When on my sick bed I languish,

Full of sorrow, full of anguish,

Fainting, gasping, trembling, crying,
Panting, groaning, speechless, dying;

Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say,
'Be not fearful, come away!""

Flatman had probably drawn from the same fountain, the Ode of Adrian:

"Animula vagula, blandula,

Hospes, comesque corporis,
Quæ nunc abibis in loca?
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis joca."

Thus imitated by Prior:

"Poor little pretty, fluttering thing,

Must we no longer live together?

And dost thou prune thy trembling wing

To take thy flight thou know'st not whither?

Thy humorous vein, thy pleasing folly,

Lies all neglected, all forgot;

And, pensive, wavering, melancholy,

Thou dread'st and hop'st thou know'st not what."

And by Pope, who sent the following to Steele for the Spectator:

Pope's superiority to all his contemporaries is strikingly evident whenever he contests with them on any particular theme.]