The peer now spreads the glittering forfex wide,
  T’ inclose the lock; now joins it, to divide. 
  E’en then, before the fatal engine closed,
  A wretched sylph too fondly interposed;
  Fate urged the shears, and cut the sylph in twain
  (But airy substance soon unites again). 
  The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
  From the fair head, forever, and forever!

  Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes,
  And screams of horror rend th’ affrighted skies. 
  Not louder shrieks to pitying Heaven are cast,
  When husbands, or when lap-dogs breathe their last;
  Or when rich China vessels, fallen from high,
  In glittering dust and painted fragments lie!

  ‘Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine,’
  The victor cried; ’the glorious prize is mine! 
  While fish in streams, or birds delight in air,
  Or in a coach and six the British fair,
  As long as Atalantis shall be read,
  Or the small pillow grace a lady’s bed,
  While visits shall be paid on solemn days,
  When numerous wax-lights in bright order blaze,
  While nymphs take treats, or assignations give,
  So long my honour, name, and praise shall live! 
  What Time would spare, from steel receives its date,
  And monuments, like men, submit to fate! 
  Steel could the labour of the gods destroy,
  And strike to dust th’ imperial towers of Troy;
  Steel could the works of mortal pride confound,
  And hew triumphal arches to the ground. 
  What wonder then, fair nymph! thy hairs should feel,
  The conquering force of unresisted steel?’

  FROM TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD

  [THE PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE]

  ’How would the sons of Troy, in arms renowned,
  And Troy’s proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground,
  Attaint the lustre of my former name,
  Should Hector basely quit the field of fame? 
  My early youth was bred to martial pains,
  My soul impels me to th’ embattled plains: 
  Let me be foremost to defend the throne,
  And guard my father’s glories and my own. 
  Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates,
  (How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!)
  The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend,
  And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. 
  And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind,
  My mother’s death, the ruin of my kind,
  Not Priam’s hoary hairs defil’d with gore,
  Not all my brothers gasping on the shore,
  As thine, Andromache!  Thy griefs I dread: 
  I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led,
  In Argive looms our battles to design,
  And woes of which so large a part was thine! 
  To bear the victor’s hard commands, or bring
  The weight of waters from Hyperia’s spring! 
  There, while you groan beneath the load of life,
  They cry, “Behold the mighty Hector’s wife!”
  Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears