"By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed;
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed."
[13.] a sigh he stole. Sighed silently. His sighs when the result of pity were not very distinctly uttered. Compare Shakespeare:
"And then the lover,
Sighing like a furnace."
—As You Like It, Act ii, sc. 7.
And then read, in the next stanza, how Alexander sighed when moved by love.
[14.] pity melts the mind to love. Compare:
"Pity swells the tide of love."
—Young's Night Thoughts, III, 106.
"Pity's akin to love."
—Southern's Oroonoko, II, 1.