Classic Poem

Riot he hight; whom some curs'd fiend did raise,
When like a chaos were the nights and days:
Got and brought up in the Cimmerian clime,
Where sun nor moon, nor days, nor nights do time:
As who should say, they scorn'd to show their faces
To such a fiend should seek to spoil the Graces.
At sight whereof Fida, nigh drown'd in fear,
Was clean dismay'd when he approached near;
Nor durst she call the deer, nor whistling wind her,
Fearing her noise might make the monster find her;
Who slyly came, for he had cunning learn'd him,
And seiz'd upon the hind ere she discern'd him.
Oh, how she striv'd and struggl'd; every nerve
Is press'd at all assays a life to serve:
Yet soon we lose what we might longer keep
Were not prevention commonly asleep.
Maids, of this monster's brood be fearful all;
What to the hind may hap to you befall.
Who with her feet held up instead of hands,
And tears which pity from the rock commands,
She sighs, and shrieks, and weeps, and looks upon him:
Alas! she sobs, and many a groan throws on him;
With plaints which might abate a tyrant's knife
She begs for pardon, and entreats for life.
The hollow caves resound her moanings near it,
That heart was flint which did not grieve to hear it;
The high-topp'd firs which on that mountain keep,
Have ever since that time been seen to weep.
The owl till then, 'tis thought, full well could sing,
And tune her voice to every bubbling spring:
But when she heard those plaints, then forth she yode
Out of the covert of an ivy tod,
And hollowing for aid, so strain'd her throat,
That since she clean forgot her former note,
A little robin sitting on a tree,
In doleful notes bewail'd her tragedy.
An asp, who thought him stout, could not dissemble,
But show'd his fear, and yet is seen to tremble.
Yet Cruelty was deaf, and had no sight
In ought which might gainsay the appetite:
But with his teeth rending her throat asunder,
Besprinkl'd with her blood the green grass under,
And gormandizing on her flesh and blood,
He, vomiting, returned to the wood,
Riot but newly gone, as strange a vision,
Though far more heavenly, came in apparition.
As that Arabian bird (whom all admire)
Her exequies prepar'd and funeral fire,
Burnt in a flame conceived from the sun,
And nourished with slips of cinnamon,
Out of her ashes hath a second birth,
And flies abroad, a wonderment on earth:
So from the ruins of this mangled creature
Arose so fair and so divine a feature,
That Envy for her heart would dote upon her;
Heaven could not choose but be enamour'd on her:
Were I a star, and she a second sphere,
I'd leave the other, and be fixed there.
Had fair Arachne wrought this maiden's hair,
When she with Pallas did for skill compare,
Minerva's work had never been esteem'd,
But this had been more rare and highly deem'd;
Yet gladly now she would reverse her doom,
Weaving this hair within a spider's loom.
Upon her forehead, as in glory, sat
Mercy and Majesty, for wond'ring at,
As pure and simple as Albania's snow,
Or milk-white swans which stem the streams of Po:
Like to some goodly foreland, bearing out
Her hair, the tufts which fring'd the shore about,
And lest the man which sought those coasts might slip,
Her eyes like stars did serve to guide the ship.
Upon her front (heaven's fairest promontory)
Delineated was th' authentic story
Of those elect, whose sheep at first began
To nibble by the springs of Canaan:
Out of whose sacred loins (brought by the stem
Of that sweet singer of Jerusalem)
Came the best Shepherd ever flocks did keep,
Who yielded up his life to save his sheep.
O thou Eterne! by whom all beings move,
Giving the springs beneath, and springs above;
Whose finger doth this universe sustain.
Bringing the former and the latter rain;
Who dost with plenty meads and pastures fill,
By drops distill'd like dew on Hermon hill:
Pardon a silly swain, who (far unable
In that which is so rare, so admirable)
Dares on an oaten pipe thus meanly sing
Her praise immense, worthy a silver string.
And thou which through the desert and the deep,
Didst lead thy chosen like a flock of sheep:
As sometime by a star thou guided'st them,
Which fed upon the plains of Bethlehem;
So by thy sacred Spirit direct my quill,
When I shall sing ought of thy holy hill,
That times to come, when they my rhymes rehearse,
May wonder at me, and admire my verse:
For who but one rapt in celestial fire,
Can by his Muse to such a pitch aspire,
That from aloft he might behold and tell
Her worth, whereon an iron pen might dwell?