Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/509

 JOHN DRYDEN

Her morals, too, were in her bosom bred,

By gieat examples daily fed,

What in the best of books, her father's life, she read. And to be read herself she need not fear; Each test, and every light, her Muse will bear, Though Epictetus with his lamp were there. Even love (for love sometimes her Muse exprest) Was but a lambent flame which play'd about her breast,

Light as the vapours of a morning dream; So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest,

'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stieam. . ..

Now all those charms, that blooming grace, The wcll-proportion'd shape, and beauteous face, Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes, In earth the much-lamented virgin lies. Not wit, nor piety could Fate prevent; Nor was the cruel Destiny content To finish all the murder at a blow, To sweep at once her life and beauty too; But, like a harden'd felon, took a pride

To woik more mibchievously slow,

And plunder'd first, and then dcbtroy'd. O double sacrilege on things divine,

To rob the relic, and deface the shrine' But thus Ormda died*

Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate; As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.

Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas His waving streamers to the winds displays, And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.

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