304 POPE. FROM 86 THE TEMPLE OF FAME."1 THE FOUR FRONTS OF THE TEMPLE. Westward, a sumptuous frontispiece appear'd, Strikes, and behold a sudden Thebes aspire! And half the mountain rolls into a wall: There might you see the lengthening spires ascend, With diamond flaming, and Barbaric gold. There Ninus shone, who spread th' Assyrian fame, Grave Zoroaster waves the circling wand: The sage Chaldæans rob'd in white appear'd, And Brachmans, deep in desert woods rever'd. These stopp'd the Moon, and call'd th' unbodied shades To midnight banquets in the glimmering glades; Made visionary fabrics round them rise, And airy spectres skim before their eyes. 1 The idea of the poem is taken from Chaucer's "House of Fame," and, though greatly altered in design, is interspersed with close imitations of the original. Doric was the architecture appropriated to the honour of heroes. The Athenian king and legislator had been the destroyer of robbers and wild beasts. The head of the Gorgon Medusa, slain by Perseus, was placed in the Aegis of Minerva. -Ovid, Met. iv. 616, &c. Hercules; one of his twelve labours was to obtain the golden apples of the gardens of the Hesperides. In the Farnese statue of the god he holds the apples in his hand. Te critics find fault with Pope in mentioning so minute a circumstance of the statue, while he omits its greater attributes. See note 3, p. 186. Orpheus was fabled to move the trees by his music. Ovid, Met. xi. Virg. Georg. iv. 454. Hor. Ars Poet, 391. The charms of Amphion's lyre caused the stones to leap to build the walls of Thebes. Hor. Odes, iii. 11, 2. Ars Poet, 394. Mount Cithaeron was the southern boundary of Boeotia, of which Thebes was the capital. A phrase from Virg. Aen. ii. 504. So Milton, Par. Lost, ii. 4, "Barbaric pearl and gold." Ninus, the alleged founder of the Assyrian empire. 10 Cyrus.--Zoroaster was the founder or reformer of the ancient Persian religion of fire, of which the Magi were the priests. The wand or rod is the instrument of a magician or of a priest -Chaldeans, the Babylonian, Brachmans, the Indian, magicians and astrolo gers.-Confucius (Cong fu tzce), the legislator and philosopher of China, supposed to be nearly contemporary with Pythagoras, Of talismans and sigils knew the power, There on rude iron columns, smear'd with blood, Druids and bards (their once loud harps unstrung), HONEST FAME. Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favours call; The learning of the ancient Egyptians consisted in geometry, astronomy, and history. -Many ancient nations used the lunar year in chronology.-The era of the Egyptian conqueror Sesostris is scarcely ascertained; he is said to have yoked in his chariot the monarchs he vanquished. 2 The monuments of the northern nations were huge tumuli, or immense stones, sculp tured with the Runic or Scandinavian characters.-Zamolxis was the disciple of Pythagoras, who taught the immortality of the soul to the Scythians."-" Odin or Woden, the legislator, hero, and deity of the Gothic nations." Druids and Bards, the priests and poets of the Gothic and Celtic religion. The northern mythology is in many of its features sublime and terrible. "The wall in lustre," &c. These lines form an expansion of Chaucer's image. The four fronts of the temple are opposite to the different quarters of the world, to signify the universality of access to Fame by all nations. The idea of the allegorical sculptures is common in poetry from Homer's Shield of Achilles downward.-Compare Chaucer's Temple of Mars, see p. 8, supra сс Oh! if the Muse must flatter lawless sway, But the fall'n ruins of another's fame; Then teach me, Heaven! to scorn the guilty bays, Drive from my breast that wretched lust of praise; Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown; Oh, grant an honest fame, or grant me none ! BLESSING OF A CONCEALED Future. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar, Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore. What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never Is, but always To be blest: The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come. UNIVERSALITY OF GOD IN NATURE. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Warms in the Sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns: To him no high, no low, no great, no small; SYNTHESIS OF HUMAN LOVE. God loves from whole to parts: but human soul Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest, FROM MESSIAH." A SACRED ECLOGUE IN IMITATION OF VIRGIL'S POLLIO. Ye nymphs of Solyma! begin the song: Rapt into future times, the bard begun : 1 See note 5, p. 191, and note 9, p. 206. Pindus, the range of mountains between Epirus and Thessaly, sacred to the Muses. 2 Is. vi. 6, 7. The ode embodies the passages of Isaiah that bear a resemblance to the imagery in Pollio. • Is. xxv. 4. 3 Is. vii. 14; ix. 6. 4 Is. xi. 1. 5 Is. xlv. 8. 7 Is. ix. 7; ancient fraud, i. e. of the Serpent.-Warburton. See, Nature hastes her earliest wreathes to bring, See, nodding forests on the mountains dance : The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego, * No more shall nation against nation rise," To leafless shrubs the flowery palms succeed, The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead," 18. xxxv. 1. Is. xxv. 8. Is. xi. b. 2 Is. Ix. 13. 3 is. xl. 3, 4. 7 Is. lxv. 21, 22. Is. xxxv. 5, 6; xliii. 18. 8 Is. lv. 13; xxxv. 7. |