"Oh! Sophonisba; Sophonisba, oh!
Oh! Narva; Narva, oh!"
The author of a song called Duke upon Duke hath improved it:
"Alas! O Nick! O Nick, alas!"
Where, by the help of a little false spelling, you have two meanings in
the repeated words.]
[Footnote 128: Edith, in the Bloody Brother, speaks to her lover in the
same familiar language:
"Your grace is full of game."
]
[Footnote 129:
"Traverse the glitt'ring chambers of the sky,
Borne on a cloud in view of fate I'll lie,
And press her soul while gods stand wishing by."--"Hannibal."
]
[Footnote 130:
"Let the four winds from distant corners meet,
And on their wings first bear it into France;
Then back again to Edina's proud walls,
Till victim to the sound th' aspiring city falls."--"Albion Queens."
]
[Footnote 131: I do not remember any metaphors so frequent in the tragic
poets as those borrowed from riding post.
"The gods and opportunity ride post."--"Hannibal."
"Let's rush together,
For death rides post."--"Duke of Guise."
"Destruction gallops to thy murder post."--"Gloriana."
]
[Footnote 132: This image, too, very often occurs:
"Bright as when thy eye
First lighted up our loves."--"Aurengzebe."
"'Tis not a crown alone lights up my name."--"Busiris."
]
[Footnote 133: There is great dissension among the poets concerning the
method of making man. One tells his mistress that the mould she was made
in being lost, Heaven cannot form such another. Lucifer, in Dryden, gives
a merry description of his own formation:
"Whom heaven, neglecting, made and scarce design'd,
But threw me in for number to the rest."--"State of Innocence."
In one place the same poet supposes man to be made of metal:
"I was form'd
Of that coarse metal which, when she was made,
The gods threw by for rubbish."--"All for Love."
In another of dough:
"When the gods moulded up the paste of man,
Some of their clay was left upon their hands.
And so they made Egyptians."--"Cleomenes."
In another of clay:
"Rubbish of remaining clay."--Sebastian."
One makes the soul of wax:
"Her waxen soul begins to melt apace."--"Anna Bullen."
Another of flint:
"Sure our souls have somewhere been acquainted
In former beings, or, struck out together,
One spark to Afric flew, and one to Portugal."--"Sebastian."
To omit the great quantities of iron, brazen, and leaden souls which are
so plenty in modern authors--I cannot omit the dress of a soul as we find
it in Dryden:
"Souls shirted but with air."--"King Arthur."
Nor can I pass by a particular sort of soul in a particular sort of
description in the New Sophonisba.
"Ye mysterious powers,
Whether thro' your gloomy depths I wander,
Or on the mountains walk, give me the calm,
The steady smiling soul, where wisdom sheds
Eternal sunshine, and eternal joy."
]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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