Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FATAL DREAM; OR, THE UNHAPPY FAVOURITE; AN ELEGY, by EMANUEL COLLINS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FATAL DREAM; OR, THE UNHAPPY FAVOURITE; AN ELEGY, by                    
First Line: Weeping melpomene assist my lays
Last Line: Forgotten by his fond penelope.'
Subject(s): Courtship; Dreams; Grief; Melancholy; Mourning; Nightmares; Sorrow; Sadness; Dejection; Bereavement


WEEPING Melpomene assist my lays,
Whilst I unhappy Tysey mourn and praise!
Denied thy aid, what bard presumes to tell
How loved he lived, or how lamented fell!
Come then, thou mournful Sister of the Nine,
Come, aid this plaintive, elegiac strain!
So shall my verse to future times deplore
The beauteous, breathless Tysey, now no more.

Ye little happy brutes on whom the fair
Bestow their morning and their evening care;
That rob the injured lover of his bliss,
And lick those lips he scarce presumes to kiss;
Whose shaggy limbs too often do supply
The place where hapless Damon ought to lie:
Hear Tysey's fate! O shun the tempting snare!
And by his ills forewarned your own beware.

Betty just now had washed my little Tyse,
And dried him on a cloth, so clean, so nice!
Had dandled him an hour upon her knee,
And from his little noddle picked each flea,
Had combed, and kissed, and danced this finest spark
That e'er did wag a tail or ever bark.

Cocked was this tail of his, his skin was snow,
Conscious he strutted like a very beau,
And Betty, to adorn his shaggy neck,
With crimson velvet did the spark bedeck;
Then brought him to her sleepy madam's bed,
And on her milk-white bosom laid his head.

So innocently decked the lambkin lies,
Till breathless on the altar stretched he dies.
For lo! poor Tysey, in a hapless time,
By wand'ring southward to some warmer clime,
Unluckily had left those hills of snow,
And died a martyr in the vale below.
For Morpheus, god of dreams, who now possessed
With warmest images her virgin breast,
Presented Nimrod to the burning dame,
Nimrod, that mighty hunter of the game.

Charmed with the form, the unreservèd maid
Her every ripened beauty open laid,
Freely admits him to her glowing breast,
Till the unrivalled youth had all possessed.
Fully she's bent to quench her am'rous flame;
But, maidens, this was only in a dream!

'Pour in the balm of love, oh heal my smart,
Still nearer yet and nearer to my heart,'
The panting virgin cried; then strongly thrice
Within her lovely thighs embraced poor Tyse.
The little brute, unable to sustain
Such strong convulsions and such mighty pain,
On the dear spot expired.—Here Chloe woke,
And, finding the delusion, weeping spoke:
'Hear, Delia, hear, oh Dian, give thy aid,
And help, in pity help, thy mournful maid.

'When the swift antelope shall lose his speed;
When rural squires shall Locke and Milton read;
When doctors shall look great in little wigs;
When our grave bishops hornpipes dance and jigs;
When Horwood on his fiddle plays one tune;
When skating shall divert us here in June;
Then, only then, shall my dear Tysey be
Forgotten by his fond Penelope.'





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