StoryTitle("caps", "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady") ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0SQ", "", "'Tis she!—but why that bleeding bosom gored, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Why dimly gleams the visionary sword? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "O, ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Is it, in Heav'n, a crime to love too well? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To bear too tender or too firm a heart, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To act a lover's or a Roman's part? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Is there no bright reversion in the sky ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For those who greatly think, or bravely die? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Why bade ye else, ye Pow'rs! her soul aspire ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Above the vulgar flight of low desire? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The glorious fault of angels and of gods; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thence to their images on earth it flows, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Dull sullen pris'ners in the body's cage: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Like Eastern kings a lazy state they keep, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And close confined to their own palace, sleep. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die) ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As into air the purer spirits flow, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So flew the soul to its congenial place, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Nor left one virtue to redeem her race. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "But thou, false guardian of a charge too good! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "See on these ruby lips the trembling breath, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "These cheeks now fading at the blast of Death: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And those love-darting eyes must roll no more. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thus, if eternal Justice rules the ball, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And frequent herses shall besiege your gates. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There passengers shall stand, and pointing say ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "(While the long fun'rals blacken all the way), ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Lo! these were they whose souls the Furies steel'd ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield.\" ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thus unlamented pass the proud away, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So perish all whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For others' good, or melt at others' woe! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "What can atone (O ever-injured shade!) ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid? ", "") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "What tho' no friends in sable weeds appear, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And bear about the mockery of woe ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To midnight dances, and the public show? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "What tho' no weeping Loves thy ashes grace, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "What tho' no sacred earth allow thee room, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb? ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yet shall thy grave with rising flow'rs be drest, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There the first roses of the year shall blow; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "While angels with their silver wings o'ershade ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The ground now sacred by thy reliques made. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "How loved, how honour'd once, avails thee not, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To whom related, or by whom begot; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A heap of dust alone remains of thee, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0SQ", "", "'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ev'n he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Shall shortly want the gen'rous tear he pays; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The Muse forgot, and thou beloved no more!", "") ?>
Poet("Alexander Pope", "1688–1744") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>