Classic Poem

[ Medea's dilemma ]

Now rising shades a solemn scene display
O'er the wide earth, and o'er th' etherial way;
All night the sailor marks the northern team,
And golden circlet of Orion's beam:
A deep repose the weary watchman shares,
And the faint wanderer sleeps away his cares;
Ev'n the fond maid, while yet all breathless lies
Her child of love, in slumber seals her eyes:
No sound of village-dog, no noise invades
The death-like silence of the midnight shades;
Alone Medea wakes: to love a prey,
Restless she rolls, and groans the night away:
For lovely Jason cares on cares succeed,
Lest vanquish'd by the bulls her hero bleed;
In sad review dire scenes of horrors rise,
Quick beats her heart, from thought to thought she flies:
As from the stream-stor'd vase with dubious ray
The sun-beams dancing from the surface play;
Now here, now there the trembling radiance falls,
Alternate flashing round th' illumin'd walls:
Thus fluttering bounds the trembling virgin's blood,
And from her eyes descends a pearly flood.
Now raving with resistless flames she glows,
Now sick with love she melts with softer woes:
The tyrant God, of every thought possess'd,
Beats in each pulse, and stings and racks her breast:
Now she resolves the magic to betray —
To tame the bulls — now yield him up a prey.
Again the drugs disdaining to supply,
She loaths the light, and meditates to die:
Anon, repelling with a brave disdain
The coward thought, she nourishes the pain,
Then pausing thus: " Ah wretched me! she cries,
" Where'er I turn what varied sorrows rise!
" Tost in a giddy whirl of strong desire,
" I glow, I burn, yet bless the pleasing fire:
" Oh! had this spirit from its prison fled,
" By Dian sent to wander with the dead,
" Ere the proud Grecians view'd the Colchian skies,
" Ere Jason, lovely Jason, met these eyes!