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Show 58 ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO II. Sad Beauty's form foul Scrofula surrounds With bones distorted, and putrescent wounds; And, fell Consumption 1 thy unerring dart Wets its broad wing in Youth's reluctant heart. " With pausing step, at night's refulgent noon, Beneath the sparkling stars, and lucid moon, Flung' d in the shade of some religious tower, The slow belt counting the departed hour, O'er gaping tombs where shed umbrageous Yews On mouldering bones their cold unwholesome dews; 1 go While low aerial voices whisper round, And moondrawn spectres dance upon the ground; Poetic MELANCHOLY loves to tread, And bend in silence o'er the countless Dead; Marks with loud sobs infantine Sorrows rave, And wring their pale hands o'er their Mother's grave; And, fell Consumption, 1. 183. . . . . . . • . . . Hreret lateri lethalis arundo. VIRGI L • CANTO II. REPRODUCTION OF LIFE. Hears on the new-turn'd sod with gestures wild The kneeling Beauty call her buried child; Upbraid wjth timorous accents Heaven's decrees, 59 And with sad sighs augment the passing breeze. 200 ' Stern Time,' She cries,' receives from Nature's womb Her beauteous births, and bears them to the tomb; Calls all her sons from earth's remotest bournt And from the closing portals none return 1' V. URANIA paused,-upturn'd her streaming eyes, · And her white bosom heaved with silent sighs; With her the MusE laments the sum of things, And hides her sorrows with her meeting wings; Long o'er the wrecks of lovely Life tbey weep, Then pleased reflect, " to die is but to sleep;'' From Nature's coffins to her cradles turn, Smile with young joy, with new affection burn. 210 And now the Muse, with mortal v.roes impress'd, Thus the fair I1ierophant again address'd. |