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Alexander Pope - Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady
Work rating: Medium

     What beck`ning ghost, along the moon-light shade
    Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
    `Tis she!—but why that bleeding bosom gor`d,
    Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
    Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,
    Is it, in heav`n, a crime to love too well?
    To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
    To act a lover`s or a Roman`s part?
    Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
   For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

      Why bade ye else, ye pow`rs! her soul aspire
   Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
   Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;
   The glorious fault of angels and of gods;
   Thence to their images on earth it flows,
   And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
   Most souls, `tis true, but peep out once an age,
   Dull sullen pris`ners in the body`s cage:
   Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
   Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;
   Like eastern kings a lazy state they keep,
   And close confin`d to their own palace, sleep.

      From these perhaps (ere nature bade her die)
   Fate snatch`d her early to the pitying sky.
   As into air the purer spirits flow,
   And sep`rate from their kindred dregs below;
   So flew the soul to its congenial place,
   Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.

      But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,
   Thou, mean deserter of thy brother`s blood!
   See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
   These cheeks now fading at the blast of death:
   Cold is that breast which warm`d the world before,
   And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
   Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball,
   Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall;
   On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,
   And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates.
   There passengers shall stand, and pointing say,
   (While the long fun`rals blacken all the way)
   "Lo these were they, whose souls the furies steel`d,
   And curs`d with hearts unknowing how to yield.
   Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
   The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
   So perish all, whose breast ne`er learn`d to glow
   For others` good, or melt at others` woe."

      What can atone (oh ever-injur`d shade!)
   Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid?
   No friend`s complaint, no kind domestic tear
   Pleas`d thy pale ghost, or grac`d thy mournful bier.
   By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos`d,
   By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos`d,
   By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn`d,
   By strangers honour`d, and by strangers mourn`d!
   What though no friends in sable weeds appear,
   Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
   And bear about the mockery of woe
   To midnight dances, and the public show?
   What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace,
   Nor polish`d marble emulate thy face?
   What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
   Nor hallow`d dirge be mutter`d o`er thy tomb?
   Yet shall thy grave with rising flow`rs be drest,
   And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
   There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
   There the first roses of the year shall blow;
   While angels with their silver wings o`ershade
   The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made.

      So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
   What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.
   How lov`d, how honour`d once, avails thee not,
   To whom related, or by whom begot;
   A heap of dust alone remains of thee,
   `Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

      Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung,
   Deaf the prais`d ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
   Ev`n he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
   Shall shortly want the gen`rous tear he pays;
   Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part,
   And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart,
   Life`s idle business at one gasp be o`er,
   The Muse forgot, and thou belov`d no more!
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