to justify the offence)
And the whole fief, in right of poetry, she claim'd.
The country open lay without defence:

For poets frequent inroads there had made,
And perfectly could represent
The shape, the face, with every lineament,
And all the large domains which the Dumb Sister sway'd;
All bow'd beneath her government,
Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went.
Her pencil drew whate'er her soul design'd,
And oft the happy draft surpass'd the image in her mind.
The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks,
And fruitful plains and barren rocks,
Of shallow brooks that flow'd so clear,
The bottom did the top appear:
Of deeper, too, and ampler floods,
Which, as in mirrors, show'd the woods;
Of lofty trees, with sacred shades,
And perspectives of pleasant glades,
Where nymphs of brightest form appear,
And shaggy satyrs standing near,
Which them at once admire and fear.
The ruins, too, of some majestic piece,
Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece,
Whose statues, friezes, columns broken lie,
And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye;
What nature, art, bold fiction e'er durst frame,
Her forming hand gave feature to the name.
So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before,
But when the peopled ark the whole creation bore.

VII.

The scene then changed: with bold erected look
Our martial king the sight with reverence strook:
For not content to express his outward part,
Her hand call'd out the image of his heart:

His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear,
His high-designing thoughts were figured there,
As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear.
Our phoenix queen was portray'd too so bright,
Beauty alone could beauty take so right;
Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace,
Were all observed, as well as heavenly face.
With such a peerless majesty she stands,
As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands:
Before a train of heroines was seen,
In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen.
Thus nothing to her genius was denied,
But like a ball of fire the further thrown,
Still with a greater blaze she shone,
And her bright soul broke out on every side.
What next she had design'd Heaven only knows:
To such immoderate growth her conquest rose,
That fate alone its progress could oppose.

VIII.

Now all those charms, that blooming grace,
The well-propor