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Or is he priest, or is he acolyte, Or layman devotee who prays in novice robes bedight? O day and night! O day and night! whence comes this feeling? For all unreal seem day and night and life and death, And all unreal the hope that sets my senses reeling, And stills my pulse an instant, checks my lab'ring breath. Yet louder rolls the mighty organ thund'ring.
A storm came on, we sprung a leak, and sorely were we tired, We plied the pumps, 'twas spell and spell, with lots of work beside; And what d'ye think this beggar did, the trick I do declare, He called us all to leave the pumps and join with him in prayer. At last our boatswain Billy, who was a thund'ring Turk, Goes up to him and says, "My man, why don't you do your work?"
Thereupon Homer says: "These words the Cyclops' burning rage provoke: From the tall hill he rends a pointed rock; High o'er the billows flew the massy load, And near the ship came thund'ring on the flood. It almost brushed the helm, and fell before: The whole sea shook, and refluent beat the shore." Pope's translation.
Greece! though deserted are thy ports, and all Thy pomp and thy magnificence are shrunk Into a narrow circuit; though thy gates Pour forth no more thy crested sons to war; Though thy capacious theatres resound No longer with the replicated shouts Of multitudes; although Philosophy Is silent 'mid thy porticos and groves; Though Commerce heaves no more the pond'rous load, Or, thund'ring with her thousand cars, imprints Her footsteps on thy rocks; though near thy fanes And marble monuments the peasant's hut Rears its low roof in bitter mockery Of faded splendor yet shalt thou survive, Nor yield till time yields to eternity.
"Se 'l miri fulminar ne l'arme avvolto, Marte lo stimi; Amor, se scopre il volto." St. 58. Mars you would think him, when his thund'ring race In arms he ran; Love, when he shew'd his face. Which is as little true to reason as to taste; for no god of war could look like a god of love. The habit of mind would render it impossible.
They lie below on Golden Beds display'd, And genial Feasts with regal Pomp are made: The Queen of Furies by their Side is set, And snatches from their Mouths th' untasted Meat; Which if they touch, her hissing Snakes she rears, Tossing her Torch, and thund'ring in their Ears. Dryd.
Not Montagu, but Mahomet the word: Great as your wit, just so is Wortley's love, Your next attempt will be on thund'ring Jove, The little angels you on Bowes bestow. But gods themselves are only fit for you." No writer of verses likes to have fun poked at them, even in the form of friendly banter, but Lady Mary seems to have borne the affliction admirably.
"The Pilgrim oft At dead of night, 'mid his orison hears Aghast the voice of Time, disparting tow'rs Tumbling all precipitate down dashed, Rattling around, loud thund'ring to the Moon." Of "The Fleece," which never became popular, and is now universally neglected, I can say little that is likely to recall it to attention.
Beaumont, by the way, died in the same year as Shakespeare, 1616, and, while Ben here names him with Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare, his contemporaries have left no anecdotes, no biographical hints. In the panegyric follow the lines: "And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, From thence to honour thee I would not seek For names, but call forth thund'ring AEschylus,"
At this place AEneas saw a vast prison, inclosed by a triple wall, around which flowed the Phleg'e-thon, a river of fire. In front of it was a huge gate of solid adamant. There rolls swift Plegethon, with thund'ring sound, His broken rocks, and whirls his surges round. On mighty columns rais'd sublime are hung The massy gates impenetrably strong.
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