[By Dr. Byrom.]
What is more tender than a Mother’s love
To the sweet Infant fondling in her arms?
What arguments need her compassion move,
To hear its cries, and help it in its harms?
Now, if the tenderest Mother was possest
Of all the love, within her single breast,
Of all the Mothers, since the world began,
’Tis nothing to the Love of God to Man.
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_UTILE DULCI._
THE NEW-YORK WEEKLY MAGAZINE;
or, Miscellaneous Repository.
+Vol. II.+] +Wednesday, December 28, 1796.+ [+No. 78.+
+Lamentations Of Panthea Over The Body Of Abradates.+*
Be the garland of hope withered by the sigh of disappointment; be the
lute of gladness no more responsive to the fingers of melody. What hast
thou to do with dreams of rapture, with scenes of visionary transport,
with the whispers of fancy that mock the ear of attention? Thou hast
nothing to do with them. O ill-fated Panthea! thy peace, thy loves, thy
joys are at an end: the howl of calamity has chased thy slumbers of
happiness, and doomed sorrow and solitude to be thy hapless handmaids.
How terrific is the brow of anguish to the eye of complaisance! to the
children of festivity how convulsive is the cup of astonishment! My
heart is as the heart of a babe that weeps bitterly; I have all the
weakness of childhood, and all the sorrows of age. As the patient whose
malady scoffs at physic, I am hopeless without a cure, I am disconsolate
as the ghost of midnight among the tombs of my forefathers. Why, O thou
nurse of my infancy, didst thou reserve me to such a date? why was I
ever lulled upon the lap of tenderness? Would that ere the dawning
irradiations of reason I had died, in the morning of existence thy
Panthea had died; thou hadst wept over her urn with less mortal anguish.
But cease, O thou nurse of my infancy, for the fault was not thine: thy
imagination was enraptured with the fictions of fondness, and painted
fairer prospects for thy much-loved Panthea: thy love reared around her
the pavilions of ease, plucked the thorns of adversity from the garden
of pleasure, and perfumed her paths with the incense of roses. It was
not thine to descend to the recesses of thought, and chase honour from
its abode as the assassin of peace. It was thy charm, O inhuman honour!
that made captive my discretion, and seduced me from the waters of
consolation to the precipices of despair. Why did I soar after thee on
the wings of ambition, and spurn at contentment for deriding thy deceit?
My fancy thought thee fairer than a studded diadem; more splendid than
the gold in the waves of Pactolus. Thou art fair, I said, and beautiful
beyond the visions of rapture; and the youth who holds my heart I will
endeavour to possess thee. I will enlarge upon thy glories that his soul
may catch thy fire; I will urge him to the plains of conquest; but, lo!
he bleeds beneath the spear.--Ye virgin daughters of Bactria, you have
seen the youth of my love: my love was foremost among the candidates for
honour, he was a hero without pre-eminence. His heart never fainted at
the clang of war; when the oriflamb of battle was erected in his view,
he stood strong as the gate of Susa, and immoveable as its battlements.
In the conflict he was dreadful as a host sheathed in terrors; rough and
terrible as a wave conflicting with the spirit of the blast. No force
dared oppose the burning flames of his wrath; he curbed the fury of the
sons of thunder in their midnight career, and waved the faulchion of
conquest over the heads of potentates. But when the Poeans of victory
have dismissed him from the plain, ye virgin daughters of Bactria, you
have seen him hasten to my arms, all placid as the smile of virginity in
the morning of youth; meek and gentle as a bride conducting to the
bowers of her bridegroom. When shall he exult at the voice of fame above
the shield of his might, and bear the wreath of glory from his warring
compeers? Alas! can the tear of evening resuscitate the broken primrose
of the vale, or shall the poplar once fallen grace the banks of
Zenderhoud; his shield of might is defenceless, his wreath of glory is
decayed, and the trumpet of fame has no music for his ear. Fool that I
was, why did I urge him to the fight? why did I arm his fortitude
against unequal slaughter! The burden of calamity presses heavy on my
soul---my spirit faints within me---I die, I die!---Is there no kind
consoler of another’s anguish, in the tenderness of sympathy, to speak
peace to my grief?---Thou weepest in the bitterness of affliction,
O thou, whose hand dried the tear in the eye of infancy; but that
infancy in vain matured by youth, waits the offices of age---soon thy
charity shall accomplish what thy tenderness has begun, when the breast
that now heaves shall throb no more, and the breath that now murmers
shall be silent forever!
[* See Xenophon’s Cyropedia, or Life of Cyrus, in M. Rollin’s
Ancient History.]
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