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Amazement in his van, with flight combin'd,^{[N 1]}
And sorrow's faded form, and solitude behind.^{[N 2]}

II. 2.
"Mighty victor,^{[V 1]} mighty lord!
Low on his^{[V 2]} funeral couch he lies!^{[N 3]}
No pitying heart, no^{[V 3]} eye, afford^{[N 4]} 65
A tear to grace his obsequies.
Is the sable warrior fled?^{[N 5]}
Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead.
The swarm, that in thy noontide beam^{[V 4]} were born?

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Variants

1. V. 63. Victor] Conqueror. MS.
2. V. 64. His] The. MS.
3. V. 65. No, no,] What, what. MS.
4. V. 69. Hover'd in thy noontide ray. MS.

Notes

1. V. 61. Cowley has a couplet with similar imagery, vol i. p. 254:
   "He walks about the perishing nation,
   Ruin behind him stalks, and empty desolation,"
   
   
   And Oldham in his Ode to Homer, stan. iii.
   "Where'er he does his dreadful standard bear,
   Horror stalks in the van, and slaughter in the rear."
   
   
   "On he went, and in his van confusion and amaze,
   While horror and affright brought up the rear." Swift.
   
   
2. V. 62. "Care sat on his faded cheek." V. Milt. P. L. i. 601.
3. V. 64. Death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress. Gray.
   "Lo! there the mighty warrior lies." Oldham. D. of Saul.
4. V. 65. The same words, with the same elliptical expression, occur in the Instal. Ode, vi:
   "Thy liberal heart, thy judging eye,
   The flower unheeded shall descry."
   
   
   On this ellipsis see Jortin, Obs, on Spenser: Tracts, vol i. p. 91.
5. V. 67. Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father. Gray.
   "Hence Edward dreadful with his sable shield."
   Prior, Poems, p. 210.