Like a young swallow, when with weary wings Expected food her fafting mother brings. His lofs of members is a heavy curfe, But all his faculties decay'd, a worse! His fervants names he has forgotten quite; Knows not his friend who fupp'd with him last night. Not ev❜n the children he begot and bred; Next to the raven's age, the Pylian king Bleft, to defraud the grave fo long, to mount Which, merciless in length, the midmost sister drew. When his brave fon upon the fun'ral pyre He faw extended, and his beard on fire; He turn'd, and weeping, afk'd his friends, what crime Had curs'd his age to this unhappy time? Thus mourn'd old Peleus for Achilles flain, How fortunate an end had Priam made, While Troy yet ftood: when Hector, with the race Of royal bastards, might his fun'ral grace: But mark what age produc'd; he liv'd to fee În fine, the feeble fire, reduced by fate, To change his fcepter for a fword, too late, Falls like an ox, that waits the coming blow; At least, he dy'd a man; his queen furviv'd, To howl, and in a barking body liv'd. I hasten to our own; nor will relate Great Mithridates, and rich Cræfus' fate; Whom Solon wifely counsell'd to attend The name of happy, till he knew his end. That Marius was an exile, that he fled, Was ta'en, in ruin'd Carthage begg'd his bread, All these were owing to a life too long: For whom had Rome beheld fo happy, young! High in his chariot, and with laurel crown'd, When he had led the Cimbrian captives round The Roman streets; defcending from his ftate, In that bleft hour he should have begg'd his fate; Then, then, he might have dy'd of all admir'd, And his triumphant foul with shouts expir'd. Campania, fortune's malice to prevent, To Pompey an indulgent favour fent: But public pray'rs impos'd on heav'n, to give To Venus, the fond mother makes a pray'r, And yet Lucretia's fate would bar that vow: But, for his mother's boy, the beau, what His parents have by day, what anxious nights! Form join'd with virtue is a fight too rare: Chafte is no epithet to fuit with fair. ; Suppose the fame traditionary strain And blusht a modeft blood into his face, We never read of fuch a tyrant king Who gelt a boy deform'd, to hear him fing. Nor Nero, in his more luxurious rage, E'er made a mistress of an ugly page: Sporus, his spouse, nor crooked was, nor lame, With mountain back, and belly, from the game Crofs-barr'd: but both his fexes well became. Go, boaft your Springal, by his beauty curft To ills; nor think I have declar'd the worst; His form procures him journey-work; a strife Betwixt town-madams, and the merchant's wife: Guess, when he undertakes this public war, What furious beafts offended cuckolds are. |