Flash'd on the peevish eye of moody night,
It look'd as if the seas would scald the heav'ns:
surge
Still louder chid the winds, th' enchased
Still answer'd louder, and when the sickly Morn
Peep'druefully thro' the bloated thick-brow'd east
To view the ruinous havoc of the dark
The stately tow'rs of Athens seem'd to stand
On hollow foam tide-whipt: the ships that lay
Scerning the blast within the marble arms
Of the sea-chid Portumnus danc'd like corks
Upon th' enraged deep, kicking each other,
And some were dash'd to fragments in this fray
Against the harbour's rocky chest: the sea
So roar'd, so madly rag'd, so proudly swell'd,
As it would thunder full into the streets,
And steep the tall Cecropian battlements
In foaming brine: the airy citadel,
Perch'd like an eagle on a high-brow'd rock,
Shook the salt water from its stubborn sides
With eager quaking: the Cyclades appear'd
Like ducking cormorants.-Such a mutiny
Outclamour'd all tradition, and gain'd belief
To ranting prodigies of heretofore.
Sev'n days it storm'd, &c.
Written at Mr. Thomson's desire, to be inserted into
The Castle of Indolence.
FULL many a fiend did haunt this house of rest, And made of passive wights an easy prey. Here Lethargy, with deadly sleep opprest, Stretch'd on his back a mighty lubbard lay, Heaving his sides, and snored night and day: To stir him from his trance it was not eath, And his half-open'd eyne he shut straightway : He led I ween the softest way to death, And taught withouten pain or strife to yield the
Of limbs enormous, but withal unsound,
Soft-swoln and pale, here lay the Hydropsie;
Unwieldy man! with belly monstrous round,
For ever fed with watery supply,
For still he drank, and yet he still was dry.
And here a moping mystery did sit,
Mother of Spleen, in robes of various dye ;
She call'd herself the Hypochondriac Fit,
And frantic seem'd to some, to others seem'd a wit.
A lady was she whimsical and proud,
Yet oft thro' fear her pride would crouchen low;
She felt or fancy'd in her fluttering mood
All the diseases that the spitals know,
And sought all physic that the shops bestow, And still new leaches and new drugs would try : 'Twas hard to hit her humour high or low,
sometimes she would laugh and sometimes cry, Sometimes would waxen wroth, and all she knew not why.
Fast by her side a listless virgin pin'd
With aching head and squeamish heart-burnings;
Pale, bloated, cold, she seem'd to hate mankind, 30
But lov'd in secret all forbidden things.
And here the Tertian shook his chilling wings;
And here the Gout, half tiger half a snake,
Rag'd with an hundred teeth, an hundred stings,
These and a thousand Furies more did shake
Those weary realms, and kept ease-loving men
awake.
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