What gain'st thou, brutal man, if I confess
Thy strength fuperior, when thy wit is lefs ?
Mind is the man: I claim my whole desert
From the mind's vigor, and th' immortal part.

But you, O Grecian chiefs, reward my care,
Be grateful to your watchman of the war:
For all my labours in so long a space,
Sure I may plead a title to your grace:
Enter the town ; I then unbarr'd the gates,
When I remov'd their tutelary fates.
By all our common hopes, if hopes they be
Which I have now reduc'd to certainty;
By falling Troy, by yonder tott'ring tow'rs,
And by their taken Gods, which now are ours;
Or if there yet a farther task remains,
To be perform'd by prudence or by pains;
If

yet some desp'rate action rests behind,
That asks high conduct, and a dauntless mind
If ought be wanting to the Trojan doom,
Which none but I can manage and o'ercome ;
Award those arms I ask, by your

decree :
Or give to this what you refuse to me.

He ceas'd: and ceasing with respect he bow'd, And with his hand at once the fatal statue

Thew'd.

Heav'n, air, and ocean rung, with loud applause,
And by the gen'ral vote he gain’d his cause.
Thus conduct won the prize, when courage faild,
And eloquence o'er brutal force prevail d.

The Death of A J A X.

He who could often, and alone, withstand The foe, the fire, and Jove's own partial hand, Now cannot his unmaster'd grief sustain, But yields to rage, to madness, and disdain; Then snatching out his fauchion, Thou, said

he, Art mine; Ulyffes lays no claim to thee. O often try'd, and ever trusty sword, Now do thy last kind office to thy lord: 'Tis Ajax who requests thy aid, to show None but himself, himself could overthrow. He said, and with so good a will to die Did to his breast the fatal point apply, It found his heart, a way till then unknown, Where never weapon enter'd but his own: No hands could force it thence, fo fixt it stood, 'Till out it rush'd, expelld by streams of spouting The fruitful blood produc'd a flow'r, which

grew On a green stem; and of a purple hue: Like his, whom unaware Apollo flew : Inscrib'd in both, the letters are the same, But those express the grief, and these the name.

THE

Story of Acıs, POLYPHEMUS, and GALATEA.

From the Thirteenth Book of

OVID'S METAMORPHOSE S.

A

CIS, the lovely youth, whose loss I mourn,
From Faunus, and the nymph Symethis

born,
Was both his parents pleasure; but to me
Was all that love could make a lover be.
The Gods our minds in mutual bands did join :
I was his only joy, and he was mine.
Now fixteen summers the sweet youth had seen;
And doubtful down began to fhade his chin:
When Polyphemus first disturb’d our joy,
And lov'd me fiercely, as I lov'd the boy.
Ask not which passion in my soul was high'r,
My last aversion, or my

first desire : Nor this the greater was, nor that the less; Both were alike, for both were in excess. Thee, Venus, thee both heav'n and earth obey; Immense thy pow'r, and boundless is thy sway. The Cyclops, who defy'd th' ætherial throne, And thought no thunder louder than his own,

The terror of the woods, and wilder far
Than wolves in plains, or bears in forests are,
Th'inhuman host, who made his bloody feasts
On mangled members of his butcher'd guests,
Yet felt the force of love, and fierce desire,
And burnt for me, with unrelenting fire:
Forgot his caverns, and his woolly care,
Affum'd the softness of a lover's air ;
And comb’d, with teeth of rakes, his rugged hair.
Now with a crooked scythe his beard he fleeks,
And mows the stubborn stubble of his cheeks:
Now in the crystal stream he looks, to try
His fimagres, and rowls his glaring eye.
His cruelty and thirst of blood are lost;
And ships fecurely fail along the coast.

The prophet Telemus (arriv'd by chance
Where Ætna's summits to the seas advance,
Who mark'd the tracks of ev'ry bird that flew,
And fure presages from their flying drew)
Foretold the Cyclops, that Ulysses' hand
In his broad eye Thould thrust a flaming brand.
The giant, with a scornful grin, reply'd,
Vain
augur,

thou hast fallly prophefyd ;
Already Love his flaming brand has tost;
Looking on two fair eyes, my light I lost.