GEORGE GRANVILLE, LORD LANSDOWNE

“The Vision”

In lonely Walks, distracted by Despair,
Shunning Mankind and torn with killing Care,
My Eyes o’erflowing, and my frantick Mind
Rack’d with wild Thoughts, swelling with Sighs the Wind;
Thro’ Paths untrodden, Day and Night I rove,                                              5
Mourning the Fate of my successless Love.
Who most desire to live, untimely fall,
But when we beg to die, Death flies our Call;
Adonis dies, and torn is the lov’d Breast
In midst of Joy, where Venus wont to rest;                                                    10
That Fate, which cruel seem’d to him, would be
Pity, Relief, and Happiness to me.
When will my Sorrows end? In vain, in vain
I call to Heaven, and tell the Gods my Pain;
The Gods averse, like Mira, to my Pray’r,                                                     15
Consent to doom, whom she denies to spare.
Why do I seek for foreign Aids, when I
Bear ready by my Side the Pow’r to die?
Be keen, my Sword, and serve thy Master well,
Heal Wounds with Wounds, and Love with Death repel.                           20
Straight up I rose, and to my aking Breast,
My bosom bare, the ready Point I prest,
When lo! astonish’d, an unusual Light
Pierc’d the thick Shade, and all around grew bright;
My dazled Eyes a radiant Form behold,                                                         25
Splendid with Light, like Beams of burning Gold;
Eternal Rays his shining Temples grace;
Eternal Youth sat blooming on his Face.
Trembling I listen, prostrate on the Ground,
His Breath perfumes the Grove, and Musick’s in the Sound.                     30
Cease, Lover, cease thy tender Heart to vex,
In fruitless Plaints of an ungrateful Sex.
In Fate’s eternal Volumes it is writ,
That Women ever shall be Foes to Wit.
With proper Arts their sickly Minds command,                                            35
And please ’em with the things they understand;
With noisy Fopperies their Hearts assail,
Renounce all Sense; how should thy Songs prevail,
When I, the God of Wit, so oft could fail?
Remember me, and in my Story find                                                              40
How vainly Merit pleads to Womankind:
I, by whom all things shine, who tune the Spheres,
Create the Day, and gild the Night with Stars;
Whose Youth and Beauty, from all Ages past,
Sprang with the World, and with the World shall last.                                 45
How oft with fruitless Tears have I implor’d
Ungrateful Nymphs, and tho’ a God, ador’d?
When could my Wit, my Beauty, or my Youth,
Move a hard Heart? or, mov’d, secure its Truth?
Here a proud Nymph, with painful Steps I chace,                                 50
The Winds out-flying in our nimble Race ;
Stay Daphne, stay————In vain, in vain I try
To stop her Speed, redoubling at my cry,
O’er craggy Rocks and rugged Hills she climbs,
And tears on pointed Flints her tender Limbs:                                             55
‘Till caught at length, just as my Arms I fold,
Turn’d to a Tree she yet escapes my Hold.
In my next Love, a diff’rent Fate I find,
Ah! which is worse, the False, or the Unkind?
Forgetting Daphne, I Coronis choose,                                                              60
A kinder Nymph—-too kind for my Repose:
The Joys I give, but more provoke her Breast,
She keeps a private Drudge to quench the rest;
How, and with whom, the very Birds proclaim
Her black Pollution, and reveals my Shame.                                                65
Hard Lot of Beauty! fatally bestow’d,
Or given to the False, or to the Proud;
By different ways they bring us equal Pain,
The False betray us, and the Proud disdain.
Scorn’d and abus’d, from mortal Loves I fly,                                                70
To seek more Truth in my own native Sky.
Venus, the fairest of immortal Loves,
Bright as my Beams, and gentle as her Doves.
With glowing Eyes, confessing warm Desires,
She summons Heaven and Earth to quench her Fires,                              75
Me she excludes, and I in vain adore,
Who neither God nor Man refus’d before;
Vulcan, the very Monster of Skies,
Vulcan she takes, the God of Wit denies.
Then cease to murmur at thy Mira’s Pride,                                           80
Whimsy, not Reason is the female Guide;
The Fate, of which their Master does complain,
Is of bad Omen to th’ inspired Train.
What Voes have fail’d? Hark how Catullus mourns,
How Ovid weeps, and slighted Gallus burns;                                               85
In melting Strains see gentle Waller bleed,
Unmov’d she heard, what none unmov’d can read.
And thou, who oft with such ambitious Choice,
Hast rais’d to Mira thy aspiring Voice,
What Profit thy neglected Zeal repays?                                                       90
Ah what Return? Ungrateful to thy Praise!
Change, change thy Style, with mortal Rage return
Unjust Disdain, and Pride oppose to Scorn;
Search all the Secrets of the Fair and Young,
And then proclaim, soon shall they bribe thy Tongue;                              95
The sharp Detractor with Success assails,
Sure to be gentle to the Man that rails;
Women, like Cowards, tame to the Severe,
Are only fierce when they discover Fear.
Thus spake the God; and upward mounts in Air,                               100
In just Resentment of his past Despair.
Provok’d to Vengeance, to my Aid I call
The Furies round, and dip my Pen in Gall:
Not one shall ‘scape of all the cozening Sex,
Vext shall they be, who so delight to vex.                                                   105
In vain I try, in vain to Vengeance move
My gentle Muse, so us’d to tender Love;
Such Magick rules my Heart, whate’er I write
Turns all to soft Complaint, and am’rous Flight.
Be gone, fond Thoughts, be gone, be bold, said I,                                    110
Satyr’s thy Theme————In vain again I try,
So charming Mira to each sense appears,
My Soul adores, my Rage dissolves in Tears.
So the gall’d Lion, smarting with his Wound
Threatens his Foes, and makes the Forest sound,                                   115
With his strong Teeth he bites the bloody Dart,
And tares his Side with more provoking Smart,
Till having spent his Voice in fruitless Cries,
He lays him down, breaks his proud Heart, and dies.

NOTES:

9 Adonis The ideal of male beauty in Greek mythology; mortal lover of Aphrodite (Venus in the Roman tradition) who died in Aphrodite’s arms after being gored by a wild boar during a hunt (Britannica).

10 Venus  “The ancient Roman goddess of beauty and love (esp. sensual love), or the corresponding Greek goddess Aphrodite” (OED).

29 prostrate “To fall forward with the face downward… to throw oneself to the ground in reverence or submission” (OED).

30 His Breath…Sound “Apollo” [Author’s note].

32 Plaints  “The action or an act of plaining… audible expression of sorrow; (also) such an expression in verse or song, a lament” (OED).

37 Fopperies “Foolishness, imbecility, stupidity” (OED).

60 Coronis “A Nymph belov’d by Apollo, but at the same time had a private Inrigue with one Ischis, which was discover’d by a Crow” [Author’s note]. As a result, Apollo commanded his sister Artemis to kill her.

78 Vulcan Roman god of fire.

84 Catullus (c. 84 BCE-c. 54 BCE), “Roman poet whose expressions of love and hatred are generally considered the finest lyric poetry of ancient Rome” (Britannica).

85 Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE), Roman poet noted especially for his Ars amatoria (The Art of Love) and Metamorphoses; Gallus Gaius Cornelius Gallus (c. 70 BCE-26 BCE), “Roman soldier and poet, famous for four books of poems addressed to his mistress ‘Lycoris’” (Britannica).

86 Waller Edmund Waller (1606-1687), English poet and politician.  He unsuccessfully tried to court Lady Dorothy Sidney, addressing her as “Sacharissa” in his poetry (Britannica).

103 The Furies Goddesses of vengeance in Greco-Roman mythology (Britannica).

104 cozening “Cheating, deceitful, fraudulent” (OED).

SOURCE: Poems Upon Several Occasions, with the British Enchanters, a Dramatic Poem (Dublin, 1732), pp. 57- 61.  [Google Books]

Edited by Elisha Taylor