One savage heart, or teach it how to love?

The winds my pray'rs, my sighs, my numbers bear,
The flying winds have lost them all in air!
Oh when, alas! shall more auspicious gales
To these fond eyes restore thy welcome sails?
If you return-ah why these long delays?
Poor Sappho dies while careless Phaon stays.
O launch thy bark, nor fear the wat'ry plain;
Venus for thee shall smooth her native main.
O launch thy bark, secure of prosp'rous gales;
Cupid for thee shall spread the swelling sails.
I you will fly-(yet ah! what cause can be,
Too cruel youth, that you should fly from me?)
If not from Phaon I must hope for ease,
Ah let me seek it from the raging seas:
To raging seas unpity'd I'll remove,
And either cease to live or cease to love!

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ELOISA TO ABELARD.

6

[THE deathless story of Abelard and Eloisa is fully given in Papirii Massoni Annales, quoted in Rawlinson's edition of their letters. 'Petrus cognomine Abailardus,' after attaining the highest eminence as a teacher of scholasticism in the University of Paris in the second decad of the twelfth century (through the influence of St Bernard his doctrine of the Trinity was condemned at the Council of Sens in 1140), retired to the Monastery of the Paraclete, of which he was the founder, and died in 1142. Eloisa, first abbess of the Paraclete, died in 1163. Abelard's French love-songs to Eloisa are lost, but their letters have been frequently published. The edition used by Pope was probably that of Rawlinson, completed in the year (1717) in which Pope's Epistle first appeared in Lintot's one-volume collection of his works. -Mr Hallam charges Pope with injustice to Eloisa in substituting for the real motive of her refusal to marry him (unwillingness to interfere with the prospects of his career) an abstract predilection for the name of mistress above that of wife.' A poet however has undoubtedly the right to make such a change. The ordinary objection, that the effect of the whole poem is immoral, is obviously inapplicable to a distinctly dramatic piece. Most readers of this poem will be inclined to consider that its language is appropriate to passion, but not the language of passion itself. From this point of view should be contrasted with it, not Ovid's Heroides, of which it is a most felicitous imitation, but such an epistle as that of Julia in the first canto of Byron's Don Juan. Yet on forwarding the volume containing Eloisa to Abelard to Lady M. W. Montagu at Constantinople, Pope hinted to her that the concluding lines of the poem admitted of a most personal interpretation. This venturesome self-impeachment was very coolly received by his correspondent; nor is the passage in question likely to strike posterity as more dangerously passionate than it seemed to her to be.]

ARGUMENT.

ABELARD and Eloisa flourished in the twelfth Century; they were two of the most distinguished Persons of their age in learning and beauty, but for nothing more famous than for their unfortunate passion. After a long course of calamities, they retired each to a several Convent, and consecrated the remainder of their days to religion. It was many years after this separation, that a letter of Abelard's to a Friend, which contained the history of his misfortune, fell into the hands of Eloisa. This awakening all her Tenderness, occasioned those celebrated letters (out of which the following is partly extracted) which gives so lively a picture of the struggles of grace and nature, virtue and passion. P.

IN these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-pensive contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing melancholy reigns;

What means this tumult in a Vestal's veins?
Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
Yet, yet I love!-From Abelard it came,
And Eloïsa yet must kiss the name.

Dear fatal name! rest ever unreveal'd,
Nor pass these lips in holy silence seal'd:
Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise,
Where mix'd with God's, his lov'd Idea lies:
O write it not my hand-the name appears
Already written-wash it out, my tears!
In vain lost Eloïsa weeps and prays,
Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeys.

Relentless walls! whose darksome round contains
Repentant sighs, and voluntary pains:

Ye rugged rocks! which holy knees have worn;
Ye grots and caverns shagg'd with horrid thorn!
Shrines! where their vigils pale-ey'd virgins keep,
And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep!
Tho' cold like you, unmov'd and silent grown,
I have not yet forgot myself to stone1.
All is not Heav'n's while Abelard has part,
Still rebel nature holds out half my heart;
Nor pray'rs nor fasts its stubborn pulse restrain,
Nor tears for ages taught to flow in vain.
Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose,
That well-known name awakens all my woes.
Oh name for ever sad! for ever dear!

Still breath'd in sighs, still usher'd with a tear.

I tremble too, where'er my own I find,

Some dire misfortune follows close behind.
Line after line my gushing eyes o'erflow,
Led thro' a sad variety of woe:

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Now warm in love, now with'ring in my bloom,
Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!

seroso.

1 'Forget thyself to marble,' Milton, Il PenThe expression (v. 20) 'caverns shagg'd with horrid thorn,' and the epithets 'pale-ey'd,' 'twilight,' 'low-thoughted care,' and others, are

first used in the smaller poems of Milton, which Pope seems to have been just reading. Warton.

There stern Religion quench'd th' unwilling flame,
There died the best of passions, Love and Fame.
Yet write, oh write me all, that I may join
Griefs to thy griefs, and echo sighs to thine.
Nor foes nor fortune take this pow'r away;
And is my Abelard less kind than they?
Tears still are mine, and those I need not spare,
Love but demands what else were shed in pray'r;
No happier task these faded eyes pursue;
To read and weep is all they now can do.
Then share thy pain, allow that sad relief;
Ah, more than share it, give me all thy grief.
Heav'n first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid;

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They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires,
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires,
The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart,
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.

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Thou know'st how guiltless first I met thy flame,
When Love approach'd me under Friendship's name;
My fancy form'd thee of angelic kind,
Some emanation of th' all-beauteous Mind.
Those smiling eyes, attemp'ring ev'ry ray,
Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day.
Guiltless I gaz'd; heav'n listen'd while you sung;
And truths divine came mended from that tongue.
From lips like those what precept fail'd to move?
Too soon they taught me 'twas no sin to love:
Back thro' the paths of pleasing sense I ran,
Nor wish'd an Angel whom I lov'd a Man.
Dim and remote the joys of saints I see;
Nor envy them that heav'n I lose for thee.

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How oft, when press'd to marriage, have I said,
Curse on all laws but those which love has made1?
Love, free as air, at sight of human ties,
Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies".

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Let wealth, let honour, wait the wedded dame,

August her deed, and sacred be her fame;
Before true passion all those views remove,

Fame, wealth, and honour! what are you to Love?
The jealous God, when we profane his fires,
Those restless passions in revenge inspires,

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And bids them make mistaken mortals groan,
Who seek in love for aught but love alone.
Should at my feet the world's great master fall,
Himself, his throne, his world, I'd scorn 'em all:

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1 'And own no laws but those which love ordains.' Dryden, Cinyras and Myrrha. P. 2 'Love will not be confin'd by Maisterie:

When Maisterie comes, the Lord of Love anon
Flutters his wings, and forthwith is he gone.'

Chaucer. P. [The Frankeleines Tale.]

Not Cæsar's empress would I deign to prove;
No, make me mistress to the man I love;
If there be yet another name more free,

More fond than mistress, make me that to thee!

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Ev'n thought meets thought, ere from the lips it part,

95

And each warm wish springs mutual from the heart.
This sure is bliss (if bliss on earth there be)
And once the lot of Abelard and me.

Alas, how chang'd! what sudden horrors rise!
A naked Lover bound and bleeding lies!
Where, where was Eloïse? her voice, her hand,
Her poniard, had oppos'd the dire command.
Barbarian, stay! that bloody stroke restrain;
The crime was common, common be the pain.
I can no more; by shame, by rage suppress'd,
Let tears, and burning blushes speak the rest.

Canst thou forget that sad, that solemn day,
When victims at yon altar's foot we lay?
Canst thou forget what tears that moment fell,
When, warm in youth, I bade the world farewell?
As with cold lips I kiss'd the sacred veil,

The shrines all trembled, and the lamps grew pale:
Heav'n scarce believ'd the Conquest it survey'd,
And Saints with wonder heard the vows I made.
Yet then, to those dread altars as I drew,

Not on the Cross my eyes were fix'd, but you:

Not grace, or zeal, love only was my call,
And if I lose thy love, I lose my all.

Come! with thy looks, thy words, relieve my woe1;
Those still at least are left thee to bestow.

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Still on that breast enamour'd let me lie,
Still drink delicious poison from thy eye",

Pant on thy lip, and to thy heart be press'd;

Give all thou canst-and let me dream the rest.

Ah no! instruct me other joys to prize,
With other beauties charm my partial eyes,
Full in my view set all the bright abode,
And make my soul quit Abelard for God.

Ah, think at least thy flock deserves thy care,
Plants of thy hand, and children of thy pray'r.
From the false world in early youth they fled,
By thee to mountains, wilds, and deserts led.
You rais'd these hallow'd walls; the desert smil'd,
And Paradise was open'd in the Wild1.

1 These lines cannot be justified by anything in the letters of Eloisa [where she merely prays Abelard to write to her]. Roscoe.

Drank dear delicious poison.' Smith's Phædra and Hippolytus. Carruthers.

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3 You rais'd these hallow'd walls;] He founded the Monastery. P.

4 'And Paradise was open'd in his face.' Dryden. Carruthers.

No weeping orphan saw his father's stores
Our shrines irradiate, or emblaze the floors;
No silver saints, by dying misers giv'n,
Here brib'd the rage of ill-requited heav'n:
But such plain roofs as Piety could raise,
And only vocal with the Maker's praise.

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In these lone walls (their days eternal bound)

These moss-grown domes with spiry turrets crown'd,

Where awful arches make a noon-day night,

And the dim windows shed a solemn light;

Thy eyes diffus'd a reconciling ray,

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And gleams of glory brighten'd all the day.
But now no face divine contentment wears,
'Tis all blank sadness, or continual tears.
See how the force of others pray'rs I try,
(O pious fraud of am'rous charity!)
But why should I on others pray'rs depend?
Come thou, my father, brother, husband, friend!
Ah let thy handmaid, sister, daughter move,
And all those tender names in one, thy love!
The darksome pines that o'er yon rocks reclin'd
Wave high, and murmur to the hollow wind,

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The wand'ring streams that shine between the hills,

The grots that echo to the tinkling rills,

The dying gales that pant upon the trees,

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The lakes that quiver to the curling breeze;
No more these scenes my meditation aid,
Or lull to rest the visionary maid.
But o'er the twilight groves and dusky caves,
Long-sounding aisles, and intermingled graves,
Black Melancholy sits, and round her throws
A death-like silence, and a dead repose:
Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene,
Shades ev'ry flow'r, and darkens ev'ry green,
Deepens the murmur of the falling floods,
And breathes a browner horror on the woods1.
Yet here for ever, ever must I stay;
Sad proof how well a lover can obey!
Death, only death, can break the lasting chain:
And here, ev'n then, shall my cold dust remain,
Here all its frailties, all its flames resign,
And wait till 'tis no sin to mix with thine.

Ah wretch! believ'd the spouse of God in vain,
Confess'd within the slave of love and man.
Assist me, heav'n! but whence arose that pray'r?
Sprung it from piety, or from despair?
Ev'n here, where frozen chastity retires,
Love finds an altar for forbidden fires.

I ought to grieve, but cannot what I ought;

I mourn the lover, not lament the fault;

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1 'Browner horror.' Dryden. Warton. [This passage must have helped to inspire the similar description of Melancholy in Collins' Passions.]