OF TEMPER.
155
And just disdain, and anger's honest flame,
With complicated power convulse her frame;
Contending passions every thought confound,
And in tumultuous doubt her soul is drown'd.
Now treacherous pride, who tempts her tongue to trip,
Forms to a keen reply her quivering lip:
Insidious Spleen now hovers o'er the fair,
Deems her half lock'd within her hateful snare;
In her new slave preparing to rejoice,
To taint her spirit, and untune her voice.
Hapless Serena! what can save thee now?
The fiend's dark signet stamps thy clouded brow,
In thy swoln eye I see the darting drop;
This fatal shower, ætherial guardian! stop:
Haste to thy votary, haste her soul sustain,
Nor let the trials she has past be vain
Ah me! while yet I speak, with shuddering dread
I hear the magic girdle's bursting thread.
This horrid omen, ye kind powers! avert:
Nor thou, bright zone! thy brighter charge desert.
With complicated power convulse her frame;
Contending passions every thought confound,
And in tumultuous doubt her soul is drown'd.
Now treacherous pride, who tempts her tongue to trip,
Forms to a keen reply her quivering lip:
Insidious Spleen now hovers o'er the fair,
Deems her half lock'd within her hateful snare;
In her new slave preparing to rejoice,
To taint her spirit, and untune her voice.
Hapless Serena! what can save thee now?
The fiend's dark signet stamps thy clouded brow,
In thy swoln eye I see the darting drop;
This fatal shower, ætherial guardian! stop:
Haste to thy votary, haste her soul sustain,
Nor let the trials she has past be vain
Ah me! while yet I speak, with shuddering dread
I hear the magic girdle's bursting thread.
This horrid omen, ye kind powers! avert:
Nor thou, bright zone! thy brighter charge desert.
