116
THE TRIUMPHS
"For this soft tribe thy heaviest fear dismiss,
And know their pains are transient as their bliss:
Rapture and Agony, in Nature's loom.
Have form'd the changing tissue of their doom;
Both interwoven with so nice an art,
No power can tear the twisted threads apart:
Yet happier these, to Nature's heart more dear,
Than the dull offspring in the torpid sphere,
Where her warm wishes, and affections kind,
Lose their bright current in the stagnant mind.
Here grief and joy so suddenly unite,
That anguish serves to sublimate delight."
She spoke; and, ere Serena could reply,
The vapour vanish'd from the lucid sky;
The nymphs revive, the shadowy fiends are fled,
The new-born flowers a richer fragrance shed;
The gentle ruler of the changeful land,
Smiling, resum'd her symbol of command;
Replac'd the roses of her regal wreath,
Still trembling at the thorns that lurk beneath:
And know their pains are transient as their bliss:
Rapture and Agony, in Nature's loom.
Have form'd the changing tissue of their doom;
Both interwoven with so nice an art,
No power can tear the twisted threads apart:
Yet happier these, to Nature's heart more dear,
Than the dull offspring in the torpid sphere,
Where her warm wishes, and affections kind,
Lose their bright current in the stagnant mind.
Here grief and joy so suddenly unite,
That anguish serves to sublimate delight."
She spoke; and, ere Serena could reply,
The vapour vanish'd from the lucid sky;
The nymphs revive, the shadowy fiends are fled,
The new-born flowers a richer fragrance shed;
The gentle ruler of the changeful land,
Smiling, resum'd her symbol of command;
Replac'd the roses of her regal wreath,
Still trembling at the thorns that lurk beneath:
