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While melting music steals upon the sky,1

And softened sounds along the waters die;
Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play,
Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay.

All but the sylph—with careful thoughts oppressed,
The impending woe sat heavy on his breast.
He summons straight his denizens 2 of air;
The lucid squadrons round the sails repair:
Soft o'er the shrouds aërial whispers breathe,
That seemed but zephyrs to the train beneath.
Some to the sun their insect wings unfold,
Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold;5
Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight,
Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light.
Loose to the wind their airy garments flew,
Thin glittering textures of the filmy dew,
Dipped in the richest tincture of the skies,

Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes;
While every beam new transient colors flings,

Colors that change whene'er they wave their wings.
Amid the circle, on the gilded mast,

Superior by the head, was Ariel placed;

His purple pinions opening to the sun,

He raised his azure wand, and thus begun :

"Ye sylphs and sylphids, to your chief give ear! Fays, fairies, genii, elves, and demons, hear!9

1 Cf. Gray's Progress of Poesy, line 36.

2 Properly, dwellers within; by extension it becomes

inhabitants."

3 What is the meaning here? Cf. "crystal," p. 26, line 75.

4 Sails.

5 What is meant by "clouds of gold"?

6 A charming description of the iridescence of “insect wings." ་ ་ ' Purple" here suggests his regal position.

8 The termination -id is feminine.

9 Cf. Milton's Paradise Lost, V. lines 600, 601:

"Hear, all ye angels, progeny of light,

Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers."

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Ye know the spheres, and various tasks assigned
By laws eternal to the aërial kind.

Some in the fields of purest ether play,

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And bask and whiten in the blaze of day.

Some guide the course of wandering orbs1 on high,
Or roll the planets through the boundless sky.
Some, less refined, beneath the moon's pale light
Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night,

Or suck the mists in grosser air below,
Or dip their pinions in the painted bow,2
Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main,
Or o'er the glebe distill the kindly rain.
Others on earth o'er human race preside,
Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide:
Of these the chief the care of nations own,3
And guard with arms divine the British throne.
Our humbler province is to tend the fair,
Not a less pleasing, though less glorious care;
To save the powder from too rude a gale,
Nor let the imprisoned essences exhale;

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To draw fresh colors from the vernal flowers;

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To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in showers,

A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs,
Assist their blushes and inspire their airs;4

Nay oft, in dreams, invention we bestow,

To change a flounce, or add a furbelow.

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This day, black omens threat the brightest fair
That e'er deserved a watchful spirit's care;

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meteors," for " planets" is

"That in the colors of the rainbow live,
And play i' the plighted clouds."

3 Note the ambiguity.

4 " Airs." Why used? What does it mean here?

Some dire disaster,1 or by force, or slight;

But what, or where, the Fates have wrapped in night.
Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law,

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Or some frail China jar receive a flaw;

Or lose her heart,2 or necklace,2 at a ball;

Or whether Heaven has doomed that Shock must fall.

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Haste, then, ye spirits! to your charge repair:
The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's 3 care;
The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign;
And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine;
Do thou, Crispissa, tend her favorite lock;
Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock.

"Whatever spirit, careless of his charge,
His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large,
Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins,
Be stopped in vials, or transfixed with pins;

Or plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie,

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Or wedged whole ages in a bodkin's 5 eye:
Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain,
While clogged he beats his silken wings in vain :
Or alum styptics with contracting power

Shrink his thin essence like a riveled flower:

6

Or, as Ixion fixed, the wretch shall feel

The giddy motion of the whirling mill,

In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow,

And tremble at the sea that froths below!"

1 What is the history of this word?

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2 Note the suggestion that her heart and necklace were of equal importance. 3 Lines 110-114. "Zephyretta," etc. Note the aptness of these names. 4 Diamond ear pendants.

5 Originally a small dagger. Cf. Shakespeare's Hamlet, iii. i. :

"When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin."

6 A Greek king, who, for boastfulness, was punished in the lower world by being fastened by brazen bands to an ever-revolving wheel.

He spoke the spirits from the sails descend;
Some, orb in orb,1 around the nymph extend;
Some thrid the mazy ringlets of her hair;

Some hang upon the pendants of her ear:
With beating hearts the dire event they wait,
Anxious, and trembling for the birth of Fate.2

1 In circles.

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2 What the issue will be. "Fate" is from the Latin, fari, to speak,' and means that which was spoken in the beginning, and is therefore unchangeable.

CANTO III.

CLOSE by those meads, forever crowned with flowers,
Where Thames with pride surveys his rising towers,
There stands a structure of majestic frame,
Which from the neighboring Hampton takes its name.
Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom
Of foreign tyrants,2 and of nymphs at home;
Here thou, great ANNA!3 whom three 4 realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take-and sometimes tea.5
Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort,
To taste awhile the pleasures of a Court;

In various talk the instructive hours they passed,
Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last;
One speaks the glory of the British Queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
At every word a reputation dies.

Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat,
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.
Meanwhile, declining from the noon of day,

The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray;
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jurymen may dine;

1 Hampton Court.

2 Particularly Louis XIV., king of France from 1643 to 1715.

3 Anne, queen of England from 1702 to 1714.

4 What three? When were they united?

5 See Note 4, p. 26. Note the humorous antithesis.

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