“Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air;
Weighs the men’s wits against the ladies’ hair;
The doubtful beam long nods from side to side;
At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside.”
But more than the wit and fancy, I think, the perfect keeping of the
poem deserves admiration. Except a touch of grossness, here and there,
there is the most pleasing harmony in all the conceptions and images.
The punishments which he assigns to the sylphs who neglect their duty
are charmingly appropriate and ingenious:--
“Whatever spirit, careless of his charge,
His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large,
Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o’ertake his sins;
Be stopped in vials or transfixed with pins,
Or plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie,
Or wedged whole ages in a bodkin’s eye;
Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain,
While clogged he beats his silver wings in vain;
Or alum styptics with contracting power,
Shrink his thin essence like a rivelled flower;
Or as Ixion fixed the wretch shall feel
The giddy motion of the whirling wheel,
In fumes of burning chocolate, shall glow,
And tremble at the sea that froths below!”