PRIAM, to whom the story was unknown,
 As dead, deplor'd his metamorphos'd son:
 A cenotaph his name, and title kept,
 And Hector round the tomb, with all his brothers,
 wept.
 This pious office Paris did not share;
 Absent alone; and author of the war,
 Which, for the Spartan queen, the Grecians drew
 T' avenge the rape; and Asia to subdue.
 The A thousand ships were mann'd, to sail the sea:
 Trojan War Nor had their just resentments found delay,
 Had not the winds, and waves oppos'd their way.
 At Aulis, with united pow'rs they meet,
 But there, cross-winds or calms detain'd the fleet.
 Now, while they raise an altar on the shore,
 And Jove with solemn sacrifice adore;
 A boding sign the priests and people see:
 A snake of size immense ascends a tree,
 And, in the leafie summit, spy'd a nest,
 Which o'er her callow young, a sparrow press'd.
 Eight were the birds unfledg'd; their mother flew,
 And hover'd round her care; but still in view:
 'Till the fierce reptile first devour'd the brood,
 Then seiz'd the flutt'ring dam, and drunk her
 blood.
 This dire ostent, the fearful people view;
 Calchas alone, by Phoebus taught, foreknew
 What Heav'n decreed; and with a smiling glance,
 Thus gratulates to Greece her happy chance:
 O Argives, we shall conquer: Troy is ours,
 But long delays shall first afflict our pow'rs:
 Nine years of labour, the nine birds portend;
 The tenth shall in the town's destruction end.
 The serpent, who his maw obscene had fill'd,
 The branches in his curl'd embraces held:
 But, as in spires he stood, he turn'd to stone:
 The stony snake retain'd the figure still his own.
 Yet, not for this, the wind-bound navy weigh'd;
 Slack were their sails; and Neptune disobey'd.
 Some thought him loth the town should be destroy'd,
 Whose building had his hands divine employ'd:
 Not so the seer; who knew, and known foreshow'd,
 The virgin Phoebe, with a virgin's blood
 Must first be reconcil'd: the common cause
 Prevail'd; and pity yielding to the laws,
 Fair Iphigenia the devoted maid
 Was, by the weeping priests, in linnen-robes
 array'd;
 All mourn her fate; but no relief appear'd;
 The royal victim bound, the knife already rear'd:
 When that offended Pow'r, who caus'd their woe,
 Relenting ceas'd her wrath; and stop'd the coming
 blow.
 A mist before the ministers she cast,
 And, in the virgin's room, a hind she plac'd.
 Th' oblation slain, and Phoebe, reconcil'd,
 The storm was hush'd, and dimpled ocean smil'd:
 A favourable gale arose from shore,
 Which to the port desir'd, the Graecian gallies
 bore.
 The House of Full in the midst of this created space,
 Fame Betwixt Heav'n, Earth, and skies, there stands a
 place,
 Confining on all three, with triple bound;
 Whence all things, tho' remote, are view'd around;
 And thither bring their undulating sound.
 The palace of loud Fame, her seat of pow'r,
 Plac'd on the summet of a lofty tow'r;
 A thousand winding entries long and wide,
 Receive of fresh reports a flowing tide.
 A thousand crannies in the walls are made;
 Nor gate, nor bars exclude the busie trade.
 'Tis built of brass, the better to diffuse
 The spreading sounds, and multiply the news:
 Where eccho's in repeated eccho's play:
 A mart for ever full, and open night and day.
 Nor silence is within, nor voice express,
 But a deaf noise of sounds, that never cease.
 Confus'd and chiding, like the hollow roar
 Of tides, receding from th' insulted shore,
 Or like the broken thunder heard from far,
 When Jove at distance drives the rouling war.
 The courts are fill'd with a tumultuous din
 Of crouds, or issuing forth, or entring in:
 A thorough-fare of news: where some devise
 Things never heard, some mingle truth with lies;
 The troubled air with empty sounds they beat,
 Intent to hear, and eager to repeat.
 Error sits brooding there, with added train
 Of vain credulity, and joys as vain:
 Suspicion, with sedition join'd, are near,
 And rumours rais'd, and murmurs mix'd, and panique
 fear.
 Fame sits aloft, and sees the subject ground,
 And seas about, and skies above; enquiring all
 around.
 The Goddess gives th' alarm; and soon is known
 The Grecian fleet descending on the town.
 Fix'd on defence, the Trojans are not slow
 To guard their shore, from an expected foe.
 They meet in fight: by Hector's fatal hand
 Protesilaus falls, and bites the strand:
 Which with expence of blood the Grecians won;
 And prov'd the strength unknown of Priam's son.
 And to their cost the Trojan leaders felt
 The Grecian heroes; and what deaths they dealt.
 The Story of From these first onsets, the Sigaean shore
 Cygnus Was strew'd with carcasses, and stain'd with gore:
 Neptunian Cygnus t