Then too, when fate shall thy fair frame destroy,
(That cause of all my guilt, and all my joy,)
In trance ecstatic may thy pangs be drowned,
Bright clouds descend, and angels watch thee round;
From opening skies may streaming glories shine,
And saints embrace thee with a love like mine.

May one kind grave unite each hapless name,
And graft my love immortal on thy fame!
Then, ages hence, when all my woes are o'er,
When this rebellious heart shall beat no more;
If ever chance two wand'ring lovers brings
To Paraclete's white walls and silver springs,

O'er the pale marble shall they join their heads,
And drink the falling tears each other sheds;
Then sadly say, with mutual pity moved,
"Oh may we never love as these have loved!"
From the full choir when loud Hosannas rise,
And swell the pomp of dreadful sacrifice,15
Amid that scene, if some relenting eye
Glance on the stone where our cold relics lie,
Devotion's self shall steal a thought from heaven,
One human tear shall drop, and be forgiven.
And sure, if Fate some future bard shall join,
In sad similitude of griefs to mine,
Condemn'd whole years in absence to deplore,
And image charms he must behold no more;
Such if there be, who love so long, so well,
Let him our sad, our tender story tell;

340

345

350

355

360

The well-sung woes will sooth my pensive ghost;

365

He best can paint them who shall feel them most.

15 [The ritual term. "The priest who assisted the cardinal in time of the dreadful sacrifice."-Hist. of Loretto, 1608.]

Epistles.

SEE

TO MR. ADDISON,

OCCASIONED BY HIS DIALOGUES ON MEDALS.1

NEE the wild waste of all devouring years!
How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears,
With nodding arches, broken temples spread!
The very tombs now vanish'd like their dead!
Imperial wonders raised on nations spoil'd,
Where mix'd with slaves the groaning martyr toil'd:
Huge theatres, that now unpeopled woods,
Now drain'd a distant country of her floods :

5

1 This was originally written in the year 1715, when Mr. Addison intended to publish his book of Medals; it was some time before he was Secretary of State; but not published till Mr. Tickell's edition of his works; at which time the verses on Mr. Craggs, which conclude the poem, were added, viz. in 1720.

[Mr. Roscoe says, "Notwithstanding the foregoing note is ascribed to Pope, the information it contains is certainly erroneous, as Mr. Addison died on the 17th of June, 1719, and consequently Pope could not in the year 1720 request to share with him in the friendship of Craggs. The fact is, that the six lines which afterwards formed the epitaph on Craggs, appear in the epistle to Addison not as an obituary, but as an inscription on a supposed medal of Craggs, and were consequently written whilst both Addison and Craggs were living." The worthy Editor has mystified a plain statement. Pope mentions that the poem was originally written in 1715, which removes the only ambiguity in the poem. There is no mistake in Pope's Note excepting a slight one which Mr. Roscoe does not notice. Tickell's edition of Addison's works did not appear till after August, 1721, by which time Craggs, to whom Addison had dedicated his works, and the Earl of Warwick, to whom Tickell had addressed his beautiful epistle on the death of Addison, had both died.]

Fanes, which admiring Gods with pride survey,
Statues of men, scarce less alive than they!
Some felt the silent stroke of mould'ring age,
Some hostile fury, some religious rage.
Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire,
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.

Perhaps, by its own ruins saved from flame,
Some buried marble half preserves a name;

That name the learn'd with fierce disputes pursue,
And give to Titus old Vespasian's due.

10

15

Ambition sighed: she found it vain to trust

The faithless column and the crumbling bust:

20

Huge moles, whose shadow stretch'd from shore to shore,

Their ruins perish'd, and their place no more!

Convinced, she now contracts her vast design,
And all her triumphs shrink into a coin.
A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps,
Beneath her palm here sad Judea weeps.

25

Now scantier limits the proud arch confine,

And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine;

A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd,

And little eagles wave their wings in gold.

30

The Medal, faithful to its charge of fame,

Through climes and ages bears each form and name:

In one short view subjected to our eye

Gods, Emperors, Heroes, Sages, Beauties, lie.
With sharpen'd sight pale antiquaries pore,
Th' inscription value, but the rust adore.

35

This the blue varnish, that the green endears,
The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years!
To gain Pescennius one employs his schemes;

One grasps a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams.

40

Poor Vadius, long with learned spleen devour'd,

Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scour❜d:2

2 [Vadius' shield is described in the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, Chap. iii.—most probably by Arbuthnot.-He seems to have entertained a contempt for Dr. Woodward, the eminent physician and naturalist, who is aimed at in this satire. Woodward wrote a dissertation on an ancient shield which he possessed.]