THE STATUES;

OR, THE

STORY OF ZEYNU 'LASNÂM.

CANTO III.

THE STATUES;

OR, THE

STORY OF ZEYNU 'LASNÂM.

CANTO III.

ОH sweetest magic of bright-flowing hair!

Love-darting eyes, and cheeks like morning fair!

Lips, bath'd by Venus in nectareous dew!

And dimpled smiles, which who unmov'd may view?
Soft winning accents, whose melodious force
Arrests the stormy passions in their course!

And constant truth, with chaste affection join'd,
And each delicious charm of lovely womankind!
When fierce desires with fraud and force combine,
Polluting earth, and rouze the wrath divine;

Ere yet the guilt-appalling bolt be hurl'd,

Your virtues favour find, and save the world.

For your's is mercy, pity's soft relief,

And patience smiling through the tear of grief:

Your's soft humility, and moving pray'r,

Which heav'n well pleas'd beholds, and bends to

hear:

With charity diffusing blessings wide,

And graceful modesty, and decent pride.

Heav'n yields to these; but these are weak to tame

The savage man, and touch his heart with shame.

His sordid soul is stung with thirst of gain,

And honour, mercy, justice, plead in vain.
He

goes without remorse, and scorning truth,
To spread the snare for unsuspecting youth,
To cozen innocence, and to despair
Betray the gen'rous, tender, trusting, fair.
Now lofty Cairo meets again his eyes,

And his fond hopes already grasp the prize.

A thousand maids appear in glowing charms;

He deems them worthy of the fairy's arms:

To each in turn the mirror he applies:

The glass shews dim, and expectation dies.

Thence the rich plains which Libanus o'ershades,

He visits, curious of the Syrian maids,

Whose amorous ditties now are heard no more,a

Lamenting Thammuz on Adonis' shore.

Next where Orontes leads his mighty stream;

And fair Ionia fronts the western beam;

There Meles and Meander wind along,

Vocal no more with high heroic song :

And where old Ida lifts his front of snow,

And Simois glitters in the plain below:

Next these the realms where once, with generous pride,

The Pontic king triumphant Rome defied :

Thammuz came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate

In amorous ditties all a summer's day.

MILTON'S PAR. LOST.