HYMN TO ADVERSITY.
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Greek: Zêna----Ton phronein brotous hodô-santa, tôi pathei mathanThenta kuriôs echein.]ÆSCHYLUS, _Agam_. Daughter of Jove, relentless power,Thou tamer of the human breast,Whose iron scourge and torturing hourThe bad affright, afflict the best!Bound in thy adamantine chain, 5The proud are taught to taste of pain,And purple tyrants vainly groanWith pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. When first thy sire to send on earthVirtue, his darling child, design'd, 10To thee he gave the heavenly birth,And bade to form her infant mind.Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid loreWith patience many a year she bore:What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, 15And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe. Scar'd at thy frown terrific, flySelf-pleasing Folly's idle brood,Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,And leave us leisure to be good. 20Light they disperse, and with them goThe summer friend, the flattering foe;By vain Prosperity receiv'd,To her they vow their truth, and are again believ'd. Wisdom in sable garb array'd, 25Immersed in rapturous thought profound,And Melancholy, silent maid,With leaden eye that loves the ground,Still on thy solemn steps attend;Warm Charity, the general friend, 30With Justice, to herself severe,And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head,Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand!Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, 35Not circled with the vengeful band(As by the impious thou art seen),With thundering voice and threatening mien,With screaming Horror's funeral cry,Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty: 40 Thy form benign, O goddess, wear,Thy milder influence impart;Thy philosophic train be thereTo soften, not to wound, my heart.The generous spark extinct revive, 45Teach me to love and to forgive,Exact my own defects to scan,What others are to feel, and know myself a Man. [Illustration: BERKELEY CASTLE. "Mark the year, and mark the night,When Severn shall reëcho with affrightThe shrieks of death thro' Berkeley's roofs that ring,Shrieks of an agonizing king!"_The Bard_, 53.]
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