Within these oratories might you see
Rich carvings, pourtraitures, and imagery :
Where every figure to the life express'd
The godhead's power to whom it was addrefs'd.
In Venus' temple on the fides were seen
The broken flumbers of enamour'd men,
Prayers that even spoke, and pity feem'd to call,
And iffuing fighs that smok'd along the wall.
Complaints, and hot defires, the lover's hell,
And scalding tears that wore a channel where they fell:
And all around where nuptial bonds, the ties,
Of love's affurance, and a train of lies,
That, made in luft, conclude in perjuries.
Beauty, and youth, and wealth, and luxury,
And fpritely hope, and short-enduring joy ;
And forceries to raise th' infernal powers,
And figils fram'd in planetary hours:
Expence, and after-thought, and idle care,
And doubts of motley hue, and dark despair;
Sufpicions, and fantastical furmise,
And jealoufy fuffus'd, with jaundice in her eyes,
Discolouring all she view'd, in tawny dress'd;
Down-look'd, and with a cuckow on her fift.
Oppos'd to her, on t'other fide advance
The coftly feaft, the carol, and the dance,
Minstrels, and mufic, poetry, and play,
And balls by night, and tournaments by day.
All these were painted on the wall, and more:
With acts and monuments of times before :
And others added by prophetic doom,
And lovers yet unborn, and loves to come:
For there th' Idalian mount, and Citheron,
The court of Venus was in colours drawn:
Before the palace-gate, in careless dress,
And loose array, fat portress Idleness:
There, by the fount, Narciffus pin'd alone;
There Samfon was; with wifer Solomon,
And all the mighty names by Love undone.
Medea's charms were there, Circean feafts,
With bowls that turn'd enamour'd youths to beafts,
Here might be feen, that beauty, wealth, and wit,
And prowess, to the power of love fubmit:
The spreading fnare for all mankind is laid;
And lovers all betray, and are betray'd.
The Goddefs' felf fome noble hand had wrought;
Smiling fhe feem'd, and full of pleafing thought:
From ocean as she first began to rise,
And fmooth'd the ruffled feas and clear'd the skies;
She trod the brine all bare below the breast,
And the green waves but ill conceal'd the reft;
A lute fhe held; and on her head was seen
A wreath of rofes red, and myrtles green;
Her turtles fann'd the buxom air above;
And, by his mother, stood an infant Love,
With wings unfledg'd; his eyes were banded o'er;
His hands a bow, his back a quiver bore,
Supply'd with arrows bright and keen, a deadly store.
But in the dome of mighty Mars the red
With different figures all the fides were fpread;
This temple, lefs in form, with equal grace,
Was imitative of the firft in Thrace:
For that cold region was the lov'd abode,
And fovereign manfion of the warrior god.
The landscape was a foreft wide and bare;
Where neither beast, nor human kind repair;
The fowl, that fcent afar, the borders fly,
And shun the bitter blaft, and wheel about the sky.
A cake of fourf lies baking on the ground,
And prickly flubs, instead of trees, are found;
Or woods with knots and knares deform'd and old;
Headlefs the moft, and hideous to behold:
A rattling tempeft through the branches went,
That ftripp'd them bare, and one fole way they bent.
Heaven froze above, fevere, the clouds congeal,
And through the chryftal vault appear'd the standing hail,
Such was the face without; a mountain stood
Threatening from high, and overlook'd the wood :
Beneath the lowring brow, and on a bent,
The temple stood of Mars armipotent:
The frame of burnish'd fteel, that caft a glare
From far, and feem'd to thaw the freezing air.
A ftrait long entry to the temple led,
Blind with high walls; and horror over head:
Thence iffued fuch a blast, and hollow roar,
As threaten'd from the hinge to heave the door;
In through that door, a northern light there fhone;
'Twas all it had, for windows there were none,
The gate was adamant; eternal frame !
Which, hew'd by Mars himself, from Indian quarries
The labour of a God; and all along
Tough iron plates were clench'd to make it strong.
A tun about was every pillar there;
A polish'd mirror fhone not half fo clear.
There faw I how the fecret felon wrought,
And treafon labouring in the traitor's thought:
And midwife Time the ripen'd plot to murder brought.
There the red anger dar'd the pallid fear;
Next ftood hypocrify, with holy leer;
Soft fmiling, and demurely looking down,
But hid the dagger underneath the gown:
Th' affaffinating wife, the houshold fiend;
And far the blackest there, the traitor-friend.
On t' other fide there ftood deftruction bare;
Unpunish'd rapine, and a waste of war.
Contest, with sharpen'd knives, in cloisters drawn,
And all with blood bespread the holy lawn.
Loud menaces were heard, and foul disgrace,
And bawling infamy, in language base;
Till fenfe was loft in found, and filence fled the place.
The slayer of himself yet saw I there,
The gore congeal'd was clotted in his hair:
With eyes half clos'd, and gaping mouth he lay,
And grim, as when he breath'd his fullen foul away.
In midst of all the dome, misfortune fate,
And gloomy discontent, and fell debate,
And madness laughing in his ireful mood;
And arm'd complaint on theft; and cries of bloo..
There was the murder'd corpfe, in covert laid,
And violent death in thousand shapes difplay'd:
The city to the soldier's rage refign'd :
Succefslefs wars, and poverty behind:
Ships burnt in fight, or forc'd on rocky fhores,
And the rash hunter ftrangled by the boars :
The new-born babe by nurses overlaid;
And the cook caught within the raging fire he made.
All ills of Mars's nature, flame and steel;
The gafping charioteer, beneath the wheel
Of his own car; the ruin'd houfe that falls
And intercepts her lord betwixt the walls:
The whole divifion that to Mars pertains,
All trades of death that deal in steel for gains,
Were there the butcher, armourer, and fmith,
Who forges fharpen'd faulchions, or the fcythe.
The fcarlet conqueft on a tower was plac'd,
With fhouts, and foldiers acclamations grac'd :
A pointed fword hung threatening o'er his head,
Suftain'd but by a flender twine of thread.
There faw I Mars's ides, the capitol,
The feer in vain foretelling Cæfar's fall;
The laft triumvirs, and the wars they move,
And Anthony, who loft the world for love.
These, and a thousand more, the fane adorn
Their fates were painted ere the men were born,
All copied from the heavens, and ruling force
Of the red star, in his revolving course.
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