Nor were we wanting to promote the Deed:

No Temples to the Queen of Love were rais’d,

Nor Incense on the sacred Altars blaz’d.

Thus sometimes Anger stings a heav’nly Mind,

And Vengeance sure, tho’ tardy, creeps behind.

From Paphos, where a hundred Altars smoke,

And love-sick Votaries her Aid invoke,

Careless of Dress and Ornament she moves,

And leaves behind her Cestus and her Doves.

The Moon had measur’d half the starry Frame,

When the fierce Goddess with the Furies came:

Far other Flames, than those of Love she bears,

And high in Air the Torch of Discord rears.

Soon as the Fiend-engendred Serpents roam,

Diffusing Terrors o’er each wrangling Dome,

The Loves, or willing, or compell’d by Force,

From guilty Lemnos bend their airy Course;

Lemnos, which dearer to her Consort stands

Than all the Cities rear’d by mortal Hands.

Thus

Urg’d by no Cause, the sullen Bridegroom fled

From blooming Beauty, and the genial Bed;

No more he pays the pleasing Debt of Love,

When conscious Cynthia rules the Realms above:

Nor Sleep surprizes with unnotic’d Pace

The clasping Pair, and strengthens their Embrace:

But Rage and Hate in every Breast arise,

And with his Torch inverted Hymen flies.

The Men (a Plea for Absence) oft complain

Of Thracian Insults, and demand the Plain:

And tho’ from Camp their Eyes with Ease command

Their native City, and the Lemnian Strand,

Tho’ Nature, oft recoiling, chides their Stay,

And their sad Children beckon them away;

Stretch’d on the Banks, they rather wish to bear

The wintry Storm, th’ Inclemencies of Air,

And listen to the hoarse-resounding Roar

Of nightly Surges, breaking on the Shore.

Our Sex in social Converse seek Relief,

And point to Thrace, the Object of their Grief:

From Morn to Night the Stream of Sorrow flows,

And Sol but sets to rise upon their Woes.

How blest was I, a Stranger then to Love,

And all the Pangs, which widow’d Matrons prove.

Now thro’ the Zenith flaming Sol had driv’n

His panting Steeds, and gain’d the middle Heav’n,

When, tho’ no gath’ring Clouds the Day controul

Thro’ Skies serene portentous Thunders roll;

And

The Caverns of the smoky God display

Thick-steaming Flames, and choak the Face of Day:

Tho’ mute each Blast, the rough Aegean roars,

And heavy Surges lash the plaintive Shores:

Then grave Polyxo thro’ the City roves,

And mourns her widow’d Bed and slighted Loves.

Mad as the Thracian Bacchanal appears,

When from afar the vocal Pipe she hears,

Evoe she cries, and shakes the solid Ground,

While ecchoing Mountains answer to the Sound.

Flush’d are her Cheeks, and haggard roll her Eyes,

She rends the desart Town with frantic Cries,

And, while the Gates resound beneath her Strokes,

To join in Aid th’ assembling Dames invokes,

Four death-devoted Babes, (sad Scene of Grief;)

Hung at her Side, and sought to give Relief.