“Swift to the lock a thousand sprites repair,
    A thousand wings by turns blow back the hair;
    And thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear;
    Thrice she looked back, and thrice the foe drew near.”

But at last “the fatal engine” closed upon the lock.  Even to the last, one wretched sylph struggling to save the lock clung to it.  It was in vain, “Fate urged the shears, and cut the sylph in twain.”  Then, while Belinda cried aloud in anger, the Baron shouted in triumph and rejoiced over his spoil.

The poem goes on to tell how Umbriel, a dusky melancholy sprite, in order to make the quarrel worse, flew off to the witch Spleen, and returned with a bag full of “sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues,” “soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears,” and emptied it over Belinda’s head.  She—­

        “Then raging to Sir Plume repairs,
    And bids her beau demand the precious hairs. 
    Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,
    And the nice conduct of a clouded case,
    With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face,
    He first the snuff-box opened, then the case.”

Sir Plume, not famous for brains, put on a very bold, determined air, and fiercely attacked the Baron—­“My Lord,” he cried, “why, what! you must return the lock!  You must be civil.  Plague on ’t! ’tis past a jest—­nay prithee, give her the hair.”  And as he spoke he tapped his snuff-box daintily.

But in spite of this valiant champion of fair ladies in distress, the Baron would not return the lock.  So a deadly battle followed in which the ladies fought against the gentlemen, and in which the sprites also took part.  The weapons were only frowns and angry glances—­

“A beau and witling perished in the throng, One died in metaphor, and one in song. . . . . .  A mournful glance Sir Fopling upwards cast, ‘Those eyes were made so killing,’ was his last.”

Belinda, however, at length disarmed the Baron with a pinch of snuff, and threatened his life with a hair pin.  And so the battle ends.  But alas!—­

    “The lock, obtained with guilt and kept with pain,
    In ev’ry place is sought, but sought in vain.”

During the fight it has been caught up to the skies—­

    “A sudden star, it shot through liquid air,
    And drew behind a radiant trail of hair.”

Thus, says the poet, Belinda has no longer need to mourn her lost lock, for it will be famous to the end of time as a bright star among the stars—­

    “Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravished hair,
    Which adds new glory to the starry sphere! 
    Not all the tresses that fair head can boast,
    Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost. 
    For after all the murders of your eye,
    When, after millions slain, yourself shall die;
    When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,
    And all those tresses shall be laid in dust,
    This lock the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
    And midst the stars inscribe Belinda’s name.”