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And I, invisibly, went prompting thee

To those fair greens where thou didst English me.'
Scarce he had utter'd this, when well I knew
It was my Prince's Homer; whose dear view
Renew'd my grateful memory of the grace
His Highness did me for him; which in face
Methought the Spirit show'd, was his delight,
And added glory to his heavenly plight :
Who told me, he brought stay to all my state;
That he was Angel to me, Star, and Fate;
Advancing colours of good hope to me;
And told me my retired age should see
Heaven's blessing in a free and harmless life,
Conduct me, thro' earth's peace-pretending strife,
To that true Peace, whose search I still intend,
And to the calm shore of a loved end.

THE PROCESSION OF TIME.

Before her flew Affliction, girt in storms,
Gash'd all with gushing wounds, and all the forms
Of bane and misery frowning in her face;
Whom Tyranny and Injustice had in chase;
Grim Persecution, Poverty, and Shame;
Detraction, Envy, foul Mishap and lame;
Scruple of Conscience; Fear, Deceit, Despair;
Slander and Clamour, that rent all the air;
Hate, War, and Massacre; uncrowned Toil;
And Sickness, t' all the rest the base and foil,
Crept after; and his deadly weight, trod down
Wealth, Beauty, and the glory of a Crown.
These usher'd her far off; as figures given

To show these Crosses borne, make peace with heaven.
But now, made free from them, next her before;
Peaceful and young, Herculean Silence bore
His craggy club; which up aloft, he hild;
With which, and his fore-finger's charm he still'd
All sounds in air; and left so free mine ears,
That I might hear the music of the spheres,

And all the angels singing out of heaven;
Whose tunes were solemn, as to passion given;
For now, that Justice was the happiness there
For all the wrongs to Right inflicted here,
Such was the passion that Peace now put on;
And on all went; when suddenly was gone
All light of heaven before us; from a wood,
Whose light foreseen, now lost, amazed we stood,
The sun still gracing us; when now, the air
Inflamed with meteors, we discover'd fair,
The skipping goat; the horse's flaming mane ;
Bearded and trained comets; stars in wane;
The burning sword, the firebrand-flying snake;
The lance; the torch; the licking fire; the drake;
And all else meteors that did ill abode ;

The thunder chid; the lightning leap'd abroad;
And yet when Peace came in all heaven was clear,
And then did all the horrid wood appear,
Where mortal dangers more than leaves did grow;
In which we could not one free step bestow,
For treading on some murther'd passenger
Who thither was, by witchcraft, forced to err :
Whose face the bird hid that loves humans best;
That hath the bugle eyes and rosy breast,

And is the yellow Autumn's nightingale.

HELEN ON THE RAMPART.

[From Iliad III.]

They reach'd the Scaean towers,

Where Priam sat, to see the fight, with all his counsellors;
Panthous, Lampus, Clytius, and stout Hicetaon,
Thymoetes, wise Antenor, and profound Ucalegon;

All grave old men; and soldiers they had been, but for age
Now left the wars; yet counsellors they were exceeding sage.
And as in well-grown woods, on trees, cold spiny grasshoppers
Sit chirping, and send voices out, that scarce can pierce our ears

For softness, and their weak faint sounds; so, talking on the tower,
These seniors of the people sate; who when they saw the power
Of beauty, in the queen, ascend, even those cold-spirited peers,
Those wise and almost wither'd men, found this heat in their years,
That they were forced (through whispering) to say: 'What man
can blame

The Greeks and Trojans to endure, for so admired a dame,
So many miseries, and so long? In her sweet countenance shine
Looks like the Goddesses'. And yet (though never so divine)
Before we boast, unjustly still, of her enforced prize,
And justly suffer for her sake, with all our progenies,
Labour and ruin, let her go; the profit of our land

Must pass the beauty.' Thus, though these could bear so fit a hand

On their affections, yet, when all their gravest powers were used, They could not choose but welcome her, and rather they accused The gods than beauty.

THE CAMP AT NIGHT.

[From Iliad VIII.]

The winds transferr'd into the friendly sky

Their supper's savour; to the which they sat delightfully,
And spent all night in open field; fires round about them shined.
As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind,
And stars shine clear, to whose sweet beams, high prospects,
and the brows.

Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves for shows,
And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight,
When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,
And all the signs in heaven are seen, that glad the shepherd's
heart;

So many fires disclosed their beams, made by the Trojan part,
Before the face of Ilion, and her bright turrets show'd.

A thousand courts of guard kept fires, and every guard allow'd Fifty stout men, by whom their horse eat oats and hard white corn, And all did wishfully expect the silver-throned morn.

THE GRIEF OF ACHILLES FOR THE SLAYING OF PATROCLUS, MENOETIUS' SON.

[From Iliad XVIII.]

They fought still like the rage of fire. And now Antilochus
Came to acides, whose mind was much solicitous

For that which, as he fear'd, was fall'n. He found him near the fleet

With upright sail-yards, uttering this to his heroic conceit : 'Ay me, why see the Greeks themselves, thus beaten from the field,

Past doubt Menoetius' son O wretch, to leave undone once freed of hostile fire,

And routed headlong to their fleet? O let not heaven yield
Effect to what my sad soul fears, that, as I was foretold,
The strongest Myrmidon next me, when I should still behold
The sun's fair light, must part with it.
Is he on whom that fate is wrought.
What I commanded; that, the fleet
Not meeting Hector, instantly he should his powers retire.’
As thus his troubled mind discoursed, Antilochus appear'd,
And told with tears the sad news thus: 'My lord, that must
be heard

Which would to heaven I might not tell; Menoetius' son lies dead,
And for his naked corse (his arms already forfeited,

And worn by Hector) the debate is now most vehement.'

This said, grief darken'd all his powers. With both his hands he rent

The black mould from the forced earth, and pour'd it on his head,
Smear'd all his lovely face; his weeds, divinely fashioned,
All filed and mangled; and himself he threw upon the shore,
Lay, as laid out for funeral, then tumbled round, and tore
His gracious curls. His ecstasy he did so far extend,
That all the ladies won by him and his now slaughter'd friend,
Afflicted strangely for his plight, came shrieking from the tents,
And fell about him, beat their breasts, their tender lineaments
Dissolved with sorrow. And with them wept Nestor's warlike son,
Fell by him, holding his fair hands, in fear he would have done

His person violence; his heart, extremely straiten'd, burn'd,
Beat, swell'd, and sigh'd as it would burst. So terribly he mourn'd,.
That Thetis, sitting in the deeps of her old father's seas,
Heard, and lamented.

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HERMES IN CALYPSO'S ISLAND.

[From Odyssey V.]

Thus charged he; nor Argicides denied,
But to his feet his fair wing'd shoes he tied,
Ambrosian, golden; that in his command
Put either sea, or the unmeasured land,
With pace as speedy as a puft of wind.
Then up his rod went, with which he declined
The eyes of any waker, when he pleased,
And any sleeper, when he wish'd, diseased.

This took, he stoop'd Pieria, and thence
Glid through the air, and Neptune's confluence
Kiss'd as he flew, and check'd the waves as light
As any sea-mew in her fishing flight

Her thick wings sousing in the savoury seas,
Like her, he pass'd a world of wilderness;
But when the far-off isle he touch'd, he went
Up from the blue sea to the continent,
And reach'd the ample cavern of the Queen,
Whom he found within; without seldom seen.
A sun-like fire upon the hearth did flame;
The matter precious, and divine the frame;
Of cedar cleft and incense was the pile,
That breathed an odour round about the isle.
Herself was seated in an inner room,
Whom sweetly sing he heard, and at her loom,
About a curious web, whose yarn she threw

In with a golden shittle. A grove grew

In endless spring about her cavern round,

With odorous cypress, pines, and poplars crown'd,

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