Poor Ariadne! thou must perish here,
Breathe out thy soul in strange and hated air,
Nor see thy pitying mother shed one tear;
Want a kind hand, which thy fixed eyes may close,
And thy stiff limbs may decently compose.
So Gay in his Dione, Act ii. Sc. 1:
What pious care my ghastful lid shall close?
What decent hand my frozen limbs compose.—Wakefield.
De Quincey assumes that the term "decent limbs" refers to the lady's shape, and he remarks that the language "does not imply much enthusiasm of praise." Pope had perhaps the same idea in his mind as the translator he imitated, and "thy decent limbs were composed" may be put inaccurately for "thy limbs were composed decently."
[557] The poet in the previous couplet has employed the word "mourn" to signify genuine regret. In this verse it is put for the act of wearing mourning,—the appearing in the "sable weeds," which are, "the mockery of woe" when the sorrow is not real.
[558] Dryden, Virg. Ecl. x. 51:
How light would lie the turf upon my breast.
A. Philips in his third Pastoral:
The flow'ry turf lie light upon thy breast.
This thought was common with the ancients.—Wakefield.