LXXII. Their only labour was to kill the time; Where hours on hours they sighing lie reclined, And court the vapoury god, soft breathing in the wind 9. LXXIII. Now must I mark the villany we found, Fierce fiends, and hags of Hell, their only nurses were. 9 After this stanza, the following was introduced, in the edition of 1746. One nymph there was, methought, in bloom of May, LXXIV. Alas! the change! from scenes of joy and rest, To this dark den, where Sickness toss'd alway. Here Lethargy, with deadly sleep oppress'd, Stretch'd on his back, a mighty lubbard, lay, Heaving his sides, and snored night and day; To stir him from his traunce, it was not eath, And his half-open'd eyne he shut straightway: He led, I wot, the softest way to death, And taught withouten pain and strife to yield the breath. LXXV. Of limbs enormous, but withal unsound, For still he drank, and yet he still was dry. And some her frantic deem'd, and some her deem'd a wit. LXXVI. A lady proud she was, of ancient blood, Yet oft her fear her pride made crouchen low: She felt, or fancied in her fluttering mood, All the diseases which the spittles know, And sought all physic which the shops bestow, And still new leaches and new drugs would try, Her humour ever wavering to and fro: For sometimes she would laugh, and sometimes Then sudden waxed wroth, and all she knew not [cry, why. LXXVII. Fast by her side a listless maiden pined, With aching head, and squeamish heart-burnings; Pale, bloated, cold, she seem'd to hate mankind, Yet loved in secret all forbidden things. And here the Tertian shakes his chilling wings; The sleepless Gout here counts the crowing cocks, A wolf now gnaws him, now a serpent stings; Whilst Apoplexy cramm'dIntemperance knocks Down to the ground at once, as butcher felleth ox1o. 10 These four concluding stanzas were claimed by Doctor Armstrong, and inserted in his Miscellanies. CANTO II. The knight of arts and industry, I. ESCAPED the castle of the sire of sin, Ah! where shall I so sweet a dwelling find? For all around, without, and all within, Nothing save what delightful was and kind, Of goodness savouring and a tender mind, E'er rose to view. But now another strain, Of doleful note, alas! remains behind; I now must sing of pleasure turn'd to pain, And of the false enchanter INDOLENCE complain. 11. Is there no patron to protect the Muse, To every labour its reward accrues, And they are sure of bread who swink and moil; They praised are alone, and starve right merrily. III. I care not, Fortune, what you me deny: You cannot bar my constant feet to trace IV. Come then, my Muse, and raise a bolder song; Come, lig no more upon the bed of sloth, Dragging the lazy languid line along, Fond to begin, but still to finish loth, Thy half-writ scrolls all eaten by the moth: Arise, and sing that generous imp of fame, Who with the sons of softness nobly wroth, To sweep away this human lumber came, Or in a chosen few to rouse the slumbering flame. V. In Fairy Land there lived a knight of old, He still in woods pursued the libbard and the boar. |