Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/462

Still her tenderest notes infuse
Melting rapture, soft desire.
Beauteous Helen young and gay,
By a painted fopling won,
Went not first, fair nymph, astray,
Fondly pleas'd to be undone.
Nor young Teucer's slaughtering bow,
Nor bold Hector's dreadful sword,
Alone, the terrours of the foe,
Sow'd the field with hostile blood.
Many valiant chiefs of old
Greatly lived and died, before
Agamemnon, Grecian bold,
Waged the ten years famous war.
But their names, unsung, unwept,
Unrecorded, lost, and gone,
Long in endless night have slept,
And shall now no more be known.
Virtue, which the poet's care
Has not well consign'd to fame,
Lies, as in the sepulchre
Some old king without a name.
But, O Humphry, great and free,
While my tuneful songs are read,
Old forgetful Time on thee
Dark oblivion ne'er shall spread.
When the deep cut notes shall fade
On the mouldering Parian stone,
On the brass no more be read
The perishing inscription.
Forgotten all the enemies,
Envious G———n's cursed spite,
And P———l's derogating lies,
Lost and sunk in Stygian night.

Still