Page:Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.djvu/112

Niobe comes with all her royal race,
With charms unnumber'd, and superior grace:

Her Phrygian garments of delightful hue,

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Inwove with gold, refulgent to the view,
Beyond description beautiful she moves
Like heav'nly Venus, 'midst her smiles and loves:
She views around the supplicating train,

And shakes her graceful head with stern disdain,

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Proudly she turns around her lofty eyes,
And thus reviles celestial deities:
"What madness drives the Theban ladies fair
"To give their incense to surrounding air?

"Say why, this new sprung deity preferred?

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"Why vainly fancy your petitions heard?
"Or say why Cœus' offspring is obey'd,
"While to my goddesship no tribute's paid?
"For me no altars blaze with living fires,

"No bullock bleeds, no frankincense transpires,

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"Tho' Cadmus' palace, not unknown to fame,
"And Phrygian nations all revere my name.

"Where'er