Classic Poem

Canto the First

Tired with afflictions, in a safe retreat
From the active world, Pharonnida is now
Making a sacred monastry her seat;
Where, near approaching the confirming vow,

A rude assault makes her a prisoner to
Almanzor's power; to expiate whose sin,
The subtle traitor swiftly leads her to
The court, where she had long a stranger been.

Here harsh employments, the unsavory weeds
Of barren wants, had overrun the seeds
Of fancy with domestic cares, and in
Those winter storms shipwrecked whate'er had been
My youth's imperfect offspring, had not I,
For love of this, neglected poverty —
That meagre fiend, whose rusty talons stick
Contempt on all that are enforced to seek
Like me a poor subsistence 'mongst the low
Shrubs of employment; whilst blest wits, that grow
Good fortune's favorites, like proud cedars stand,
Scorning the stroke of every feeble hand,
Whose vain attempts, though they should martyr sense,
Would be repulsed with big-bulked confidence:
Yet blush not, gentle Muse! thou oft hast had
Followers, by Fortune's hand as meanly clad,
And such as, when time had worn envy forth,
Succeeding ages honored for their worth.
Then though not by these rare examples fired
To vain presumption, with a soul untired
As his, whose fancy's short ephemeras know
No life — but what doth from his liquor flow,
Whose wit, grown wanton with Canary's wealth,
Makes the chaste Muse a pandress to a health,
Our royal lovers' story I'll pursue
Through time's dark paths; which now have led me to
Behold Argalia, by assisting art
Advanced to health, preparing to depart
From his obscure abode, to prosecute
Designs, which, when success strikes terror mute
With pleasing joy, shall him the mirror prove
Of forward valour, glossed with filial love.
But let us here with prosperous blessings leave
Awhile the noble hero, and receive
From time's accounts the often varying story
Of her whose love conducted him to glory,
Distressed Pharonnida; whose sufferings grown
Too great for all that virtue ere had known
From human precepts, flies for refuge to
Heaven's narrowest paths, where the directing clew
Of law, to which the earth for order owes,
Lost in zeal's light, a useless trouble grows.
Returned were all the messengers, which she
Had at the first salutes of liberty
To seek Argalia sent: but since none brought
Her passion's ease, sick hope no longer sought
Those flattering empirics; but at love's bright fires
Kindling her zeal, with sober pace retires
From all expected honors, to bestow
What time her youth did yet to nature owe,
A solemn recluse, by a sacred vow
Locked up from action, whilst she practised how,
By speculation safely to attain
What busier mortals doubtfully do gain.
Within the compass of the valley, where
Ismander's palace stood, the pious care
Of elder times had placed a monastry,
Whose fair possessors, from life's tumults free,
In a calm voyage towards heaven — their home, there spent
The quiet hours, so sweetly innocent,
As if that place, that happy place, had been
Of all the earth alone exempt from sin;
Some sacred power ordaining (when 'twas given)
It for the next preparing school to heaven,
From whence those vestals should, when life expires,
Be for supplies advanced to heavenly choirs.
Lost to the world in sorrow's labyrinths, here
Pharonnida, now out of hope to clear
This tempest of her fate, resolves to cast
Her faith's firm anchor: but before she passed
The dangerous straits of a restrictive vow,
She, to such friends as judgment taught her how
To prize, imparts it; 'mongst which few, the fair
Silvandra, whom lost love had taught despair,
With sad Florenza, both resolve to take
The same strict habit, and with her forsake
The treacherous world. But to disturb this clear
Stream of devotion, soon there did appear
Dissuading friends — Ismander, loath to lose
So loved a guest, whilst she's of power to choose,
Together with the virtuous Amida,
Spend their most powerful arguments to draw
Her from those cold thoughts, that her virtue might,
Whilst unconcealed, lend weaker mortals light.
Long had this friendly conflict lasted, ere
Her conquered friends, whom a religious care
Frighted from robbing heaven of saints, withdrew
To mourn her loss; yet ere they left her to
Her cloistered cell, Ismander, to comply
With aged custom, calls such friends whom nigh
Abode had made familiar, to attend
His royal guest. Some hasty days they spend
In solemn feasting, where each friend, although
Clothed as when they at triumphs met, did show
A silent sadness, such as wretched brides,
When the neglected nuptial robe but hides
The cares of an obstructed love, before
Harsh parents wear. The mirthless feast passed o'er,
The noble virgins, in procession by
The mourning train, unto the monastry
Slowly conducted are; each led by two
Full-breasted maids, whom Hymen, to renew
The world's decaying stock, his joys to prove
By contracts summoned to conjugal love.
These as they passed, like paranymphs which led
Young beauties to espouse a maidenhead,
With harmony, whose each concording part
Tickled the ear, whilst it did strike the heart
With mournful numbers, rifling every breast
Of their deep thoughts, thus the sad sense exprest.

I.

To secret walks, to silent shades,
To places where no voice invades
The air, but what's created by
Their own retired society,
Slowly these blooming nymphs we bring
To wither out their fragrant spring;
For whose sweet odors lovers pine,
Where beauty doth but vainly shine: C HO.
Where Nature's wealth, and Art's assisting cost,
Both in the beams of distant hope are lost.

II.

To cloisters where cold damps destroy
The busy thoughts of bridal joy;
To vows whose harsh events must be
Uncoupled cold virginity;
To pensive prayers, where heaven appears
Through the pale cloud of private tears;
These captive virgins we must leave,
Till freedom they from death receive: C HO.
Only in this remote conclusion blest,
This vale of tears leads to eternal rest.

III.

Then since that such a choice as their's,
Which styles them the undoubted heirs
To heaven, 'twere sinful to repent;
Here may they live, till beauty spent
In a religious life, prepare
Them with their fellow-saints to share
Celestial joys, for whose desire
They freely from the world retire: C HO.
Go then, and rest in blessed peace, whilst we
Deplore the loss of such society.

Through all the slow delays of love arrived
To the unguarded gate, Friendship, that thrived
Not in persuasion's rhetoric, withdraws
Her forces to assist that juster cause —
Prayers for their future good — with which whilst they
Are taking leave, the unfolded gates give way
For the blest votaries' entrance, whom to meet,
A hundred pair of maids, more chastely sweet
Than flowers which grow untouched in deserts, were
Led by their abbess; to whose pious care
These being joined, with such a sad reverse
Of eyes o'erflowing, (as the sable herse
Close mourners leave, when they must see no more
Their coffined dead), their friends are from the door
With eager looks, woe's last — since now denied
A further view, depart unsatisfied.
This last of duties, which the dearest friend
Ought to perform, brought to successful end;
For here no custom with a dowry's price
At entrance paid, nursed slothful avarice;
They're softly led through a fair garden where
Each walk was by the founder's pious care,
For various fancies, wanton imagery,
To catch the heart, and not to court the eye,
Adorned with sacred histories. From hence
T' the centre of this fair circumference,
The fabric come, the roving eye, confined
Within the buildings, to enlarge the mind
In contemplation, saw where happy art
Had on the figured walls the second part
Of sacred story drawn, in lines that had
The world's Redeemer, from his first being clad
In robes of flesh, presented to the view
Through all his passions, till it brought him to
The cross, that highest seal of love, where he
A sinless offering died, from sin to free
The captived world, which knew no other price
But that to pay the debts of paradise.
Passed through this place, where bleeding passion strove
Their melting pity to refine to love,
They 're now the temple entered; where, to screen
Their thoughts yet nearer heaven, whom they had seen
I' the entrance scourged, contemned, and crucified,
They there beheld, though veils of glory hide
Some part of the amazing majesty,
In his ascension, as when raised to be,
For them that hear his death freed from the hate
Of angry heaven, the powerful advocate.
Besides these bold attempts of art that stood
To fright the wicked, or to prompt the good,
Something more great, more sacred, than could by
Art be expressed, without the help of the eye
Reached at the centre of the soul; from whence
To heaven, our raised desires' circumference,
Striking the lines of contemplation, she,
Wrapped from the earth, is, in an ecstacy
Holy and high, through faith's clear optic shown
Those joys which to departed saints are known.
Before those prayers, which zeal had tedious made,
With their last troops did conquered heaven invade,
The day was on the glittering wings of light
Fled to the western world, and swarthy night
In her black empire throned; from silver shrines
The kindled lamps through all the temple shines
With dappled rays, that did to the eye present
The beauties of the larger firmament.
In which still calm, when all their rites were now
So near performed, that the confirming vow
Alone remained, a sudden noise, of rude
And clamorous sound, did through the ear intrude
On their affrighted fancies, in so high
A voice, that all their sacred harmony,
In this confusion lost, appeared so small,
As if that whispered which was made to call.
Although the awful majesty that here
Religion held, the weak effects of fear
With faith expelled, yet when that nearer to
Their slender gates the murmuring tumult drew,
The abbess sends not to secure, but see
Who durst attempt what heaven from all kept free
By strictest law, save those unhallowed hands
That follow curses whilst they fly commands:
But they being entered, ere the timorous scout
Could notice give, fear, which first sprung from doubt,
Being into wild confusion grown, from all
Set forms affrights them; whilst at once they call
For Heaven's protecting mercy, to behold
That place where peaceful saints used to unfold
Heaven's oracles, possessed with villains that
Did ne'er know aught but want to tremble at,
Which looked like those that with proud angels fell,
And to storm heaven were sent in arms from hell;
Converts that scene, where nothing did appear
But calm devotion, to distracting fear.
Amazed with horror, each sad vot'ress stands,
Whilst sacred relics drop from trembling hands;
Here one whose heart with fear's convulsions faint,
Flies to the shrine of her protecting saint;
By her another stands, whose spirits spent
In passion, looks pale as her monument:
One shrieks, another prays, a third had crossed
Herself so much, ill angels might have lost
The way to hurt her, if not taught to do 't,
'Cause she t' the sign too much did attribute.
The royal stranger, by her fear pursued,
To the altar fled, had with mixed passion viewed
This dreadful troop, whilst from the temple gate
They passed the seat where trembling virgins sat
Free from uncivil wrongs, as if that they
That entered had been men prepared to pray,
Not come to ravish; from which sight her fear
Picks flowers of hope, but such as, they drawn near,
From fancy's soft lap, in a hurricane
Of passion dropped her prayers and tears in vain,
As words in winds, or showers in seas, when they
Prepare for ruin the obstructed way
To pity, which her stock of prayers had cost,
In the dark shade of sudden horror lost.
Seized on by two o' the sacrilegious train,
Whose black disguise had made the eye in vain
Seek to inform the soul, she and the poor
Florenza, whilst their helpless friends deplore
With silent tears so sad a loss, are drew
From the clasped altar in the offended view
Of their protecting saints; from whose shrines in
A dismal omen dropped whate'er had been
With hopes of merit placed. Black sulphury damps
With swift convulsions quenched the sacred lamps,
The fabric shakes, and, as if grieved they stood
To circle guilt, the walls sweat tears of blood.
Shrieks, such as if those sainted souls, that there
Trod heaven's straight paths, in their just quarrel were
Rose from their silent dormitories to
Deter their foes, through all the temple flew.
But here in vain destroying angels shook
The sword of vengeance, whilst his bold crimes struck
'Gainst heaven in high contempt; with impious haste,
Snatched from the altar, whilst their friends did waste
Unheard orisons for their safety, they
Unto the fabric's utmost gate convey
Their beauteous prizes, where with silence stood
Their dreadful guard, which, like a neighbouring wood,
When vapors tip the naked boughs in light,
With unsheathed swords through the black mists of night
A sparkling terror struck, with such a speed
As scarce gave time to fear what would succeed
To such preceding villanies. Within
Her coach imprisoned, the sad princess, in
A march for swiftness such as busy war
Hastes to meet death in, but for silence far
More still than funerals, is by that black troop,
With such a change as falling stars do stoop
To night's black region, from the monastry
Hurried in haste; by whom, or whither, she
Yet knows no more than souls departing, when
Or where to meet in robes of flesh again.
The day salutes her, and uncurtained light
Welcomes her through the confines of the night,
But lends no comfort; every object that
It showed her, being such as if frighted at,
The prince of day, grieved he 'd no longer slept,
To shun, shrunk back beneath a cloud, and wept.
When the unfolded curtains gave her eyes
Leave to look forth, a troop, whose close disguise
Were stubborn arms, she only saw, and they
So silent, nought but motion did betray
The faculties of life; by whom being led,
In such a sad march as their honored dead.
Close mourners follow, she, some slow paced days
'Mongst strangers passing, thorough stranger ways,
At both amazed, at length, unfathomed by
Her deepest thought, within the reach of the eye
Her known Gerenza views; but with a look
From whence cold passion all the blood had took,
And in her face, that frozen sea of fear,
Left nought but storms of wonder to appear.
Convened within the spacious judgment-hall
Of Reason, she ere this had summoned all
Her weaker passions to the impartial bar
Of moral virtue, where they sentenced are
Only to an untroubled silence; in
Which serious act whilst she had busied been,
She is, unnoted, ere the fall of day
Brought by her convoy to a lodge that lay
Off from the road, a place, when seen, she knew
Ere his rebellion had belonged unto
Her worst of foes, Almanzor; which begins
At first a doubt, whose growing force soon wins
The field of faith, and tells her timorous thought,
Her father's troops would ne'er have thither brought
Her, if designed to suffer, since that he
Knew those more fit for close captivity.
But long her reason lies not fettered in
These cross dilemmas; the slow night had been
With tedious hours passed o'er, whilst she by none
But mutes, no less unheard than they're unknown,
Is only waited on; by whom, when day
To action called, she veiled, is led the way
To the attending convoy, who had now
Varied the scene; — Almanzor, studying how
To court compassion in his prince, dares not
At the first view, ere merit had begot
A calm remission of rebellious sin,
Affront an anger which had justice been
In his confusion; his arms he now behind,
As that which might too soon have called to mind
His former crimes, he leaves, and for them took,
To gain the aspect of a pitying look,
A hermit's homely weed: his willing train,
By that fair gloss their liberties to gain,
Rode armed; but so, what for offence they bore,
Was in submission to lay down before
The throne of injured power, to cure whose fear
Their armed heads on haltered necks appear.
Near to the rear of these, the princess in
A mourning litter, close as she had been
In a night-march unto her tomb, is through
The city's wondering tumults led unto
The royal palace, at whose gates all stay,
Save bold Almanzor; whom the guards obey
For his appearing sanctity so much,
That he unquestioned enters, and, thought such
As his grave habit promised, soon obtained
The prince's sight; where with a gesture feigned
To all the shapes of true devotion, he
By a successful fiction comes to be
Esteemed the true converter of those wild
Bandits, which, being by their own crimes exiled,
In spite of law had lived to punish those
Which did the rules of punishment compose.
These being pardoned, as he 'd took from thence
Encouragement, veiled under the pretence
Of a religious pity, he begins,
In language whose emollient smoothness wins
An easy conquest on belief, to frame
A sad petition; which, although in name
It had disguised Pharonnida, did find
So much of pity as the prince, inclined
To lend his aid for the relief of her
Whose virtue found so fair a character
In his description, it might make unblest
That power which left so much of worth distrest.
Though too much tired with private cares to show
In public throngs, how much his love did owe
To suffering virtue; yet since told that she
Was too much masked in clouds of grief to be
The object of the censuring court, he to
The litter goes, whose sable veil withdrew,
With wonder, that did scarce belief admit,
Shadowed in grief, he sees his daughter sit,
His long lost daughter, whom unsought, to be
Thus strangely found, to such an ecstacy
Of joy exalts him, that his spirits by
Those swift pulsations had been all let fly
With thanks towards heaven, had not the royal maid
With showers of penetential tears allayed
Those hotter passions, and revoked him to
Support her griefs, whose burthen had out-grew
The powers of life, but that there did appear
Kind nature's love to cure weak nature's fear.
In this encounter of their passions, both
With sorrow silent stood, words being loath
To intrude upon their busy thoughts, till they
In moist compassion melted had away
His anger's fever and her frozen fears
In Nature's balm, soft love's extracted tears:
Like a sad patient, whose forgotten strength
Decayed by chronic ills, hath made the length
Of life his burthen, when near death, meets there
Unhoped-for health; so from continual care,
The soul's slow hectic, elevated by
This cordial joy, the slothful lethargy
Of age or sorrow finds an easier cure
Than the unsafe extreme, a calenture.
Nor are these comforts long constrained to rest
Within the confines of his own swelled breast,
Ere its dismantled rays did in a flight,
Swift as the motions of unbodied light,
Disperse its epidemic virtues through
The joyful court; which now arrived unto
Its former splendor, heaven's expected praise
Doth on the wings of candid mercy raise:
Which spreading in a joyful jubilee
To all offenders, tells Almanzor he
Might safely now unmask; which done, ere yet
Discovered, at the well-pleased princess' feet,
Humbled with guilt, he kneels; who, at the sight
As much amazed as so sublime a flight
Of joy admitted, stands attentive to
What did in these submissive words ensue.
" Behold, great sir, for now I dare be seen,
An object for your mercy, that had been
Too dreadful for discovery, had not this
Preceding joy told me no crime could miss
The road of mercy, though, like mine, a sin
The suffering nation is enveloped in.
Sunk in the ocean of my guilt, I 'd gone,
A desperate rebel, waited on by none
But out-laws, to a grave obscure, had not
Relenting heaven thus taught me how to blot
Out some of sin's black characters, ere I
Beheld the beams of injured majesty. "
This, in his passion's relaxation spoke,
Persuades the prince's justice to revoke.
Its former rigor. By the helpful hand
Of mercy raised, Almanzor soon did stand
Not only pardoned, but secured by all
His former honors from a future fall,
Making that fortune, which did now appear
Their pity's object, through the glass of fear
With envy looked on; but in vain, he stood
Confirmed in love's meridian altitude,
The length of life from Honor's western shade,
Except in new rebellion retrograde:
Which plotting leave him, till the winding clew
Of fancy shall conduct your knowledge to
Those uncouth vaults; and mounting the next story,
See virtue climbing to the throne of glory.