ANNA HUME.

THE SAME.

      When gods and men I saw in Cupid’s chain
    Promiscuous led, a long uncounted train,
    By sad example taught, I learn’d at last
    Wisdom’s best rule—­to profit from the past
    Some solace in the numbers too I found,
    Of those that mourn’d, like me, the common wound
    That Phoebus felt, a mortal beauty’s slave,
    That urged Leander through the wintry wave;
    That jealous Juno with Eliza shared,
    Whose more than pious hands the flame prepared;
    That mix’d her ashes with her murder’d spouse. 
    A dire completion of her nuptial vows. 
    (For not the Trojan’s love, as poets sing,
    In her wan bosom fix’d the secret string.)
    And why should I of common ills complain,
    Shot by a random shaft, a thoughtless swain? 
    Unarm’d and unprepared to meet the foe,
    My naked bosom seem’d to court the blow. 
    One cause, at least, to soothe my grief ensued;
    When I beheld the ruthless power subdued;
    And all unable now to twang the string,
    Or mount the breeze on many-colour’d wing. 
    But never tawny monarch of the wood
    His raging rival meets, athirst for blood;
    Nor thunder-clouds, when winds the signal blow,
    With louder shock astound the world below;
    When the red flash, insufferably bright,
    Heaven, earth, and sea displays in dismal light;
    Could match the furious speed and fell intent
    With which the winged son of Venus bent
    His fatal yew against the dauntless fair
    Who seem’d with heart of proof to meet the war;
    Nor Etna sends abroad the blast of death
    When, wrapp’d in flames, the giant moves beneath;
    Nor Scylla, roaring, nor the loud reply
    Of mad Charybdis, when her waters fly
    And seem to lave the moon, could match the rage
    Of those fierce rivals burning to engage. 
    Aloof the many drew with sudden fright,
    And clamber’d up the hills to see the fight;
    And when the tempest of the battle grew,
    Each face display’d a wan and earthy hue. 
    The assailant now prepared his shaft to wing,
    And fixed his fatal arrow on the string: 
    The fatal string already reach’d his ear;
    Nor from the leopard flies the trembling deer
    With half the haste that his ferocious wrath
    Bore him impetuous on to deeds of death;
    And in his stern regard the scorching fire
    Was seen, that burns the breast with fierce desire;
    To me a fatal flame! but hope to see
    My lovely tyrant forced to love like me,
    And, bound in equal chain, assuaged my woe,
    As, with an eager eye, I watch’d the coming blow
    But virtue, as it ne’er forsakes the soul
    That yields obedience to her blest control,
    Proves how of her unjustly