And funeral-games were played at new-returning light: Who, naked, wrestled best, besmeared with oil, Or who, with gauntlets, gave or took the foil, I will not tell you, nor would you attend; But briefly haste to my long story's end. I pass the rest. The year was fully mourned, And Palamon long since to Thebes returned. When, by the Grecians' general consent, At Athens Theseus held his parliament; Among the laws that passed, it was decreed, That conquered Thebes from bondage should be freed; Reserving homage to the Athenian throne, To which the sovereign summoned Palamon. Unknowing of the cause, he took his way, Mournful in mind, and still in black array. The monarch mounts the throne, and, placed on high, Commands into the court the beauteous Emily. So called, she came; the senate rose, and paid Becoming reverence to the royal maid. And first soft whispers through the assembly went; With silent wonder then they watched the event: All hushed, the king arose with awful grace, Deep thought was in his breast, and counsel in his face: At length he sighed, and, having first prepared The attentive audience, thus his will declared:-- The Cause and Spring of motion, from above, Hung down on earth, the golden chain of Love; Great was the effect, and high was his intent, When peace among the jarring seeds he sent: Fire, flood, and earth, and air, by this were bound, And love, the common link, the new creation crowned. The chain still holds; for, though the forms decay, Eternal matter never wears away: The same first mover certain bounds has placed, How long those perishable forms shall last; Nor can they last beyond the time assigned By that all-seeing, and all-making Mind: Shorten their hours they may; for will is free; But never pass the appointed destiny. So men oppressed, when weary of their breath, Throw off the burden, and suborn their death. Then, since those forms begin, and have their end, On some unaltered cause they sure depend: Parts of the whole are we; but God the whole; Who gives us life, and animating soul. For nature cannot from a part derive That being, which the whole can only give: He, perfect, stable; but imperfect we, Subject to change, and different in degree; Plants, beasts, and man; and, as our organs are, We, more or less, of his perfection share. But, by a long descent, the ethereal fire Corrupts; and forms, the mortal part, expire. As he withdraws his virtue, so they pass, And the same matter makes another mass. This law the Omniscient Power was pleased to give, That every kind should by succession live; That individuals die, his will ordains; The propagated species still remains. The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees, Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees; Three centuries he grows, and three he stays, Supreme in state, and in three more decays: