62
THE TRIUMPHS
First stands Disease; an hag of magic power,
Varying her frightful visage every hour,
Her horrors heightening as those changes last,
And each new form more hideous than the past.
Detraction next, a shapeless fiend, appears,
Whose shrivell'd hand a misty mirror rears;
Fram'd by malignant Art, th'infernal toy
Inverts the lovely mien of smiling Joy,
Robs roseate Beauty of attractive grace,
And gives a step-dame's frown to Nature's face.
The third in place, but with a fiercer air,
See the true Gorgon, Disappointment, glare!
By whose petrific power Delight 's o'erthrown;
And Hope's warm heart becomes an icy stone.
Last, in a gorgeous robe, that, ill bestow'd,
Bows her mean body by its cumbrous load,
Stands fretful Discontent, of fiends the worst,
By dignity debas'd, by blessings curst,
Who poisons Pleasure with the sourest leaven,
And makes a hell of Love's ecstatic heaven.
Varying her frightful visage every hour,
Her horrors heightening as those changes last,
And each new form more hideous than the past.
Detraction next, a shapeless fiend, appears,
Whose shrivell'd hand a misty mirror rears;
Fram'd by malignant Art, th'infernal toy
Inverts the lovely mien of smiling Joy,
Robs roseate Beauty of attractive grace,
And gives a step-dame's frown to Nature's face.
The third in place, but with a fiercer air,
See the true Gorgon, Disappointment, glare!
By whose petrific power Delight 's o'erthrown;
And Hope's warm heart becomes an icy stone.
Last, in a gorgeous robe, that, ill bestow'd,
Bows her mean body by its cumbrous load,
Stands fretful Discontent, of fiends the worst,
By dignity debas'd, by blessings curst,
Who poisons Pleasure with the sourest leaven,
And makes a hell of Love's ecstatic heaven.
