Classic Poem

And now from all at once my leave I take
With this petition, that when thou shalt wake,
My tears already spent may serve for thine,
And all thy sorrows be excus'd by mine!
Yea, rather than my loss should draw on hers,
(Hear, Heaven, the suit which my sad soul prefers!)
Let this her slumber, like Oblivion's stream,
Make her believe our love was but a dream!
Let me be dead in her as to the earth,
Ere Nature lose the grace of such a birth.
Sleep thou, sweet soul, from all disquiet free,
And since I now beguile thy destiny,
Let after patience in thy breast arise,
To give his name a life who for thee dies.
He dies for thee that worthy is to die,
Since now in leaving that sweet harmony
Which Nature wrought in thee, he draws not to him
Enough of sorrow that might straight undo him;
And have for means of death his parting hence,
So keeping Justice still in innocence.
Here stay'd his tongue, and tears anew began:
“Parting knows more of grief than absence can,”
And with a backward pace and ling'ring eye
Left, and for ever left, their company.
By this the curs'd informer of the deed
With wings of mischief (and those have most speed)
Unto the priests of Pan had made it known;
And, though with grief enough, were thither flown
With strict command the officers that be
As hands of Justice in her each decree.
Those unto judgment brought him: where, accus'd
That with unhappy hand he had abus'd
The holy tree, and by the oath of him
Whose eye beheld the separated limb,
All doubts dissolv'd, quick judgment was awarded,
And but last night, that hither strongly guarded
This morn he should be brought, and from yond rock,
Where every hour new store of mourners flock,
He should be headlong thrown, too hard a doom,
To be depriv'd of life, and dead, of tomb.
This is the cause, fair goddess, that appears
Before you now clad in an old man's tears,
Which willingly flow out, and shall do more
Than many winters have seen heretofore.
But father, quoth she, let me understand
How you are sure that it was Cælia's hand
Which rent the branch; and then (if you can) tell
What nymph it was which near the lonely dell
Your shepherd succour'd. Quoth the good old man:
The last time in her orb pale Cynthia ran,
I to the prison went, and from him knew
(Upon my vow) what now is known to you;
And that the lady which he found distress'd,
Is Fida call'd, a maid not meanly bless'd
By heaven's endowments, and—Alas! but see,
Kind Philocel, engirt with misery
More strong than by his bonds, is drawing nigh
The place appointed for his tragedy!
You may walk thither and behold his fall;
While I come near enough, yet not at all.
Nor shall it need I to my sorrow knit
The grief of knowing with beholding it.
The goddess went—(but ere she came did shroud
Herself from every eye within a cloud)—
Where she beheld the shepherd on his way,
Much like a bridegroom on his marriage-day,
Increasing not his misery with fear:
Others for him, but he shed not a tear.
His knitting sinews did not tremble ought,
Nor to unusual palpitation brought
Was or his heart or liver: nor his eye,
Nor tongue, nor colour show'd a dread to die.
His resolution keeping with his spirit,
Both worthy him that did them both inherit,
Held in subjection every thought of fear,
Scorning so base an executioner.
Some time he spent in speech, and then began
Submissly prayen to the name of Pan,
When suddenly this cry came from the plains:
From guiltless blood be free, ye British swains!
Mine be those bonds, and mine the death appointed!
Let me be headlong thrown, these limbs disjointed!
Or if you needs must hurl him from that brim,
Except I die there dies but part of him.
Do then right, Justice, and perform your oath,
Which cannot be without the death of both!
Wonder drew thitherward their drowned eyes,
And sorrow Philocel's. Where he espies,
What he did only fear, the beauteous maid,
His woful Cælia, whom (ere night array'd
Last time the world in suit of mournful black,
More dark than use, as to bemoan their wrack)
He at his cottage left in sleep's soft arms
By pow'r of simples and the force of charms:
Which time had now dissolv'd, and made her know
For what intent her love had left her so.
She stay'd not to awake her mate in sleep,
Nor to bemoan her fate. She scorn'd to weep,
Or have the passion that within her lies
So distant from her heart as in her eyes.
But rending of her hair, her throbbing breast
Beating with ruthless strokes, she onward press'd
As an enraged furious lioness,
Through uncouth treadings of the wilderness,
In hot pursuit of her late missed brood.
The name of Philocel speaks every wood,
And she begins to still and still her pace:
Her face deck'd anger, anger deck'd her face.
So ran distracted Hecuba along
The streets of Troy. So did the people throng
With helpless hands and heavy hearts to see
Their woful ruin in her progeny.
And harmless flocks of sheep that nearly fed
Upon the open plains wide scattered,
Ran all afront, and gaz'd with earnest eye
(Not without tears) while thus she passed by.
Springs that long time before had held no drop,
Now welled forth and over-went the top:
Birds left to pay the spring their wonted vows,
And all forlorn sat drooping on the boughs:
Sheep, springs and birds, nay trees' unwonted groans
Bewail'd her chance, and forc'd it from the stones.