KENSINGTON GARDEN.
173
Milkah for wiles above her peers ronown'd,Deep-skill'd in charms, and many a mystick sound.As through the regal dome she sought for prey,Observed the infant Albion where he lay.In mantles broider'd o'er with gorgeous pride,And stole him from his sleeping mothers side. Who now but Milkah triumphs in her mind!Ah wretched nymph! to future evils blind.The time shall come when thou shalt dearly payThe theft, hard-hearted! of that guilty day:Thou in thy turn shall like the queen repine,And all her sorrows doubled shall be thine:He who adorns thy house, the lovely boyWho now adorns it, shall at length destroy. Two hundred moons in their pale course had seenThe gay-robed fairies glimmer on the green,And Albion now had reach'd in youthful primeTo nineteen years, as mortals measure time.Flush'd with resistless charms he fired to loveEach nymph and little dryad of the grove;For skilful Milkah spared not to employHer utmost art to rear the princely boy;Each supple limb she swath'd, and tender bone,And to the elfin standard kept him down;She robb'd dwarf elders of their fragrant fruit,And fed him early with the daisys root,
