Page:The Works of Alexander Pope (1717).djvu/398
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362
Part of the XIIIth BOOK of
The sweet delusion kindly you impose,
To sooth my hopes and mitigate my woes.
Thus he: The blue-ey'd Goddess thus replies:
How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise?
Who vers'd in fortune, fear the flatt'ring show,
And taste not half the bliss the Gods bestow.
The more shall Pallas aid thy just desires,
And guard the wisdom which her self inspires.
Others, long absent from their native place,
Strait seek their home, and fly with eager pace,
To their wives arms, and childrens dear embrace.
Not thus Ulysses; he decrees to prove
His subjects faith, and Queens suspected love,
Who mourn'd her Lord twice ten revolving years,
And wastes the days in grief, the nights in tears.
But Pallas knew (thy friends and navy lost)
Once more 'twas giv'n thee to behold thy coast:
Yet how could I with adverse fate engage,
And mighty Neptune's unrelenting rage?—
To sooth my hopes and mitigate my woes.
Thus he: The blue-ey'd Goddess thus replies:
How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise?
Who vers'd in fortune, fear the flatt'ring show,
And taste not half the bliss the Gods bestow.
The more shall Pallas aid thy just desires,
And guard the wisdom which her self inspires.
Others, long absent from their native place,
Strait seek their home, and fly with eager pace,
To their wives arms, and childrens dear embrace.
Not thus Ulysses; he decrees to prove
His subjects faith, and Queens suspected love,
Who mourn'd her Lord twice ten revolving years,
And wastes the days in grief, the nights in tears.
But Pallas knew (thy friends and navy lost)
Once more 'twas giv'n thee to behold thy coast:
Yet how could I with adverse fate engage,
And mighty Neptune's unrelenting rage?—
Now