Eighteenth Century Poetry and Prose

Description

The Spleen BY ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA

A Pindaric Poem

What art thou, Spleen, which ev’ry thing dost ape?

Thou Proteus to abused mankind,

Who never yet thy real cause could find,

Or fix thee to remain in one continued shape.

Still varying thy perplexing form,

Now a Dead Sea thou’lt represent,

A calm of stupid discontent,

Then, dashing on the rocks wilt rage into a storm.

Trembling sometimes thou dost appear,

Dissolved into a panic fear;

On sleep intruding dost thy shadows spread,

Thy gloomy terrors round the silent bed,

And crowd with boding dreams the melancholy head;

Or, when the midnight hour is told,

And drooping lids thou still dost waking hold,

Thy fond delusions cheat the eyes,

Before them antic specters dance,

Unusual fires their pointed heads advance,

And airy phantoms rise.

Such was the monstrous vision seen,

When Brutus (now beneath his cares opprest,

And all Rome’s fortunes rolling in his breast,

Before Philippi’s latest field,

Before his fate did to Octavius lead)

Was vanquished by the Spleen.

Falsely, the mortal part we blame

Or our depressed, and pond’rous frame,

Which, till the first degrading sin

Let thee, its dull attendant, in,

Still with the other did comply,

Nor clogged the active soul, disposed to fly,

And range the mansions of its native sky.

Nor, whilst in his own heaven he dwelt,

Whilst Man his paradise possessed,

His fertile Garden in the fragrant East,

And all united odors smelled,

No armèd sweets, until thy reign,

Could shock the sense, or in the face


[amz_corss_sell asin=”1776744683″]