The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore Collected by Himself. In Ten Volumes |
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 | The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore |  |
JUVENILE POEMS.
FRAGMENTS OF COLLEGE EXERCISES.
Like gilded ruins, mouldering while they shine,
How heavy sits that weight of alien show,
Like martial helm upon an infant's brow;
Those borrow'd splendours, whose contrasting light
Throws back the native shades in deeper night.
Where are the arts by which that glory grew?
The genuine virtues that with eagle-gaze
Sought young Renown in all her orient blaze!
Th' exploring soul, whose eye had read mankind?
Where are the links that twin'd, with heav'nly art,
His country's interest round the patriot's heart?
[OMITTED]
[Is there no call, no consecrating cause]
[OMITTED]
Approv'd by Heav'n, ordain'd by nature's laws,
Where justice flies the herald of our way,
And truth's pure beams upon the banners play?
To slumb'ring babes, or innocence in death;
And urgent as the tongue of Heav'n within,
When the mind's balance trembles upon sin.
An echo in the soul's most deep retreat;
Along the heart's responding chords should run,
Nor let a tone there vibrate—but the one!
VARIETY.
Allures the sportive, wandering bee
To roam, untired, from flower to flower,
He'll tell you, 'tis variety.
Her seasons, all her changes see;
And own, upon Creation's face,
The greatest charm's variety.
Still let me roam, unfix'd and free;
In all things,—but the nymph I love,
I'll change, and taste variety.
Could e'er estrange my heart from thee;—
No, let me ever seek those arms,
There still I'll find variety.
TO A BOY, WITH A WATCH.
WRITTEN FOR A FRIEND.
To rove through Erudition's bowers,
And cull the golden fruits of truth,
And gather Fancy's brilliant flowers?
To feel thy parents' hearts approving,
And pay them back in sums of bliss
The dear, the endless debt of loving?
With this idea toil is lighter;
This sweetens all the fruits of truth,
And makes the flowers of fancy brighter.
May sometimes teach thy soul to ponder,
If indolence or siren joy
Should ever tempt that soul to wander.
Can ne'er be chain'd by man's endeavour;
That life and time shall fade away,
While heav'n and virtue bloom for ever!
SONG.
[If I swear by that eye, you'll allow]
Its look is so shifting and new,
That the oath I might take on it now
The very next glance would undo.
Such thousands of arrows have got,
That an oath, on the glance of an eye
Such as yours, may be off in a shot.
Though each moment the treasure renews,
If my constancy wishes to trip,
I may kiss off the oath when I choose.
Both the dew and the oath that are there;
And I'd make a new vow ev'ry hour,
To lose them so sweetly in air.
Nor fancy my faith is a feather;
On my heart I will pledge you my vow,
And they both must be broken together!
TO ------
[Remember him thou leav'st behind]
Whose heart is warmly bound to thee,
Close as the tend'rest links can bind
A heart as warm as heart can be.
Though many seem'd my soul to share;
'Twas passion when I thought I lov'd,
'Twas fancy when I thought them fair.
Beguil'd me only while she warm'd;
'Twas young desire that fed the dream,
And reason broke what passion form'd.
If I had still in freedom rov'd,
If I had ne'er thy beauties seen,
For then I never should have lov'd.
Had never to this heart been known;
But then, the joys that lovers steal,
Should they have ever been my own?
Dearest! the pain of loving thee,
The very pain is sweeter bliss
Than passion's wildest ecstasy.
In which my soul is prison'd now,
For the most light and winged heart
That wantons on the passing vow.
However far remov'd from me,
That there is one thou leav'st behind,
Whose heart respires for only thee!
Thy fate unto another's care,
That arm, which clasps thy bosom round,
Cannot confine the heart that's there.
By ties all other ties above,
For I have wed it at a shrine
Where we have had no priest but Love.
SONG.
[When Time, who steals our years away]
Shall steal our pleasures too,
The mem'ry of the past will stay,
And half our joys renew.
Then, Julia, when thy beauty's flow'r
Shall feel the wintry air,
Remembrance will recall the hour
When thou alone wert fair.
Then talk no more of future gloom;
Our joys shall always last;
For Hope shall brighten days to come,
And Mem'ry gild the past.
I drink to Love and thee:
Thou never canst decay in soul,
Thou'lt still be young for me.
And as thy lips the tear-drop chase,
Which on my cheek they find,
That sorrow leaves behind.
Then fill the bowl—away with gloom!
Our joys shall always last;
For Hope shall brighten days to come,
And Mem'ry gild the past.
When love shall lose its soul,
My Chloe drops her timid tears,
They mingle with my bowl.
How like this bowl of wine, my fair,
Our loving life shall fleet;
Though tears may sometimes mingle there,
The draught will still be sweet.
Then fill the cup—away with gloom!
Our joys shall always last;
For Hope will brighten days to come,
And Mem'ry gild the past.
SONG.
[Have you not seen the timid tear]
Steal trembling from mine eye?
Have you not mark'd the flush of fear,
Or caught the murmur'd sigh?
And can you think my love is chill,
Nor fix'd on you alone?
And can you rend, by doubting still,
A heart so much your own?
Devoutly, warmly true;
My life has been a task of love,
One long, long thought of you.
If all your tender faith be o'er,
If still my truth you'll try;
Alas, I know but one proof more—
I'll bless your name, and die!
REUBEN AND ROSE.
A TALE OF ROMANCE.
Had long been remember'd with awe and dismay;
For years not a sunbeam had play'd in its halls,
And it seem'd as shut out from the regions of day.
Yet none could the woods of that castle illume;
And the lightning, which flash'd on the neighbouring stream,
Flew back, as if fearing to enter the gloom!
Said Willumberg's lord to the Seer of the Cave;—
“It can never dispel,” said the wizard of verse,
“Till the bright star of chivalry sinks in the wave!”
Who could be but Reuben, the flow'r of the age?
Though Youth had scarce written his name on her page.
For Rose, who was bright as the spirit of dawn,
When with wand dropping diamonds, and silvery feet,
It walks o'er the flow'rs of the mountain and lawn.
Sad, sad were the words of the Seer of the Cave,
That darkness should cover that castle for ever,
Or Reuben be sunk in the merciless wave!
Shall my Reuben no more be restor'd to my eyes?”
“Yes, yes—when a spirit shall toll the great bell
Of the mouldering abbey, your Reuben shall rise!”
And Rose felt a moment's release from her pain;
And wip'd, while she listen'd, the tears from her eyes,
And hop'd she might yet see her hero again.
When he felt that he died for the sire of his Rose;
To the Oder he flew, and there, plunging beneath,
In the depth of the billows soon found his repose.—
Not long in the waters the warrior lay,
When a sunbeam was seen to glance over the walls,
And the castle of Willumberg bask'd in the ray!
There sorrow and terror lay gloomy and blank:
Two days did she wander, and all the long night,
In quest of her love, on the wide river's bank.
And heard but the breathings of night in the air;
Long, long did she gaze on the watery swell,
And saw but the foam of the white billow there.
As she look'd at the light of the moon in the stream,
She thought 'twas his helmet of silver she saw,
As the curl of the surge glitter'd high in the beam.
Poor Rose, on the cold dewy margent reclin'd,
There wept till the tear almost froze in her eye,
When—hark!—'twas the bell that came deep in the wind!
A form o'er the waters in majesty glide;
She knew 'twas her love, though his cheek was decay'd,
And his helmet of silver was wash'd by the tide.
Dim, dim through the phantom the moon shot a gleam;
'Twas Reuben, but, ah! he was deathly and cold,
And fleeted away like the spell of a dream!
From the bank to embrace him, but vain her endeavour!
Then, plunging beneath, at a billow she caught,
And sunk to repose on its bosom for ever!
DID NOT.
Than we had dared to own before,
Which then we hid not;
We saw it in each other's eye,
And wish'd, in every half-breath'd sigh,
To speak, but did not.
'Twas the first time I dared so much,
And yet she chid not;
But whisper'd o'er my burning brow,
“Oh! do you doubt I love you now?”
Sweet soul! I did not.
I press'd it closer, closer still,
Though gently bid not;
Till—oh! the world hath seldom heard
Of lovers, who so nearly err'd,
And yet, who did not.
TO ------
[That wrinkle, when first I espied it]
At once put my heart out of pain;
Till the eye, that was glowing beside it,
Disturb'd my ideas again.
When woman's declension begins;
When, fading from all that is pleasant,
She bids a good night to her sins.
I would sooner, my exquisite mother!
Repose in the sunset of thee,
Than bask in the noon of another.
TO MRS. ---
ON SOME CALUMNIES AGAINST HER CHARACTER.
Is not that heart a heart refin'd?
Hast thou not every gentle grace,
We love in woman's mind and face?
And, oh! art thou a shrine for Sin
To hold her hateful worship in?
Though some thy heart hath harbour'd near,
May now repay its love with blame;
Though man, who ought to shield thy fame,
Ungenerous man, be first to shun thee;
Though all the world look cold upon thee,
Yet shall thy pureness keep thee still
Unharm'd by that surrounding chill;
Floating, while all was froz'n around,—
Unchill'd, unchanging shalt thou be,
Safe in thy own sweet purity.
This alludes to a curious gem, upon which Claudian has left us some very elaborate epigrams. It was a drop of pure water enclosed within a piece of crystal. See Claudian. Epigram. “de Crystallo cui aqua inerat.” Addison mentions a curiosity of this kind at Milan; and adds, “It is such a rarity as this that I saw at Vendome in France, which they there pretend is a tear that our Saviour shed over Lazarus, and was gathered up by an angel, who put it into a little crystal vial, and made a present of it to Mary Magdalen.” —Addison's Remarks on several Parts of Italy.
ANACREONTIC.
[Press the grape, and let it pour]
Tib. lib. i. eleg. 5.
Around the board its purple show'r;
And, while the drops my goblet steep,
I'll think in woe the clusters weep.
Heav'n grant no tears, but tears of wine.
Weep on; and, as thy sorrows flow,
I'll taste the luxury of woe.
TO ------
[When I lov'd you, I can't but allow]
I had many an exquisite minute;
But the scorn that I feel for you now
Hath even more luxury in it.
Some witchery seems to await you;
To love you was pleasant enough,
And, oh! 'tis delicious to hate you!
TO JULIA.
IN ALLUSION TO SOME ILLIBERAL CRITICISMS.
Why, let the stingless critic chideWith all that fume of vacant pride
Which mantles o'er the pedant fool,
Like vapour on a stagnant pool.
Oh! if the song, to feeling true,
Can please th' elect, the sacred few,
Whose souls, by Taste and Nature taught,
Thrill with the genuine pulse of thought—
If some fond feeling maid like thee,
The warm-ey'd child of Sympathy,
Shall say, while o'er my simple theme
She languishes in Passion's dream,
“He was, indeed, a tender soul—
“No critic law, no chill control,
“Should ever freeze, by timid art,
“The flowings of so fond a heart!”
Yes, soul of Nature! soul of Love!
That, hov'ring like a snow-wing'd dove,
And hail'd me Passion's warmest child,—
Grant me the tear from Beauty's eye,
From Feeling's breast the votive sigh;
Oh! let my song, my mem'ry, find
A shrine within the tender mind;
And I will smile when critics chide,
And I will scorn the fume of pride
Which mantles o'er the pedant fool,
Like vapour round some stagnant pool!
TO JULIA.
A dream, I find, illusory as sweet:
One smile of friendship, nay, of cold esteem,
Far dearer were than passion's bland deceit!
Your heart was only mine, I once believ'd.
Ah! shall I say that all your vows were air?
And must I say, my hopes were all deceiv'd?
That all our joys are felt with mutual zeal;
Julia!—'tis pity, pity makes you kind;
You know I love, and you would seem to feel.
A joy in which affection takes no part?
No, no, farewell! you give me but your charms,
When I had fondly thought you gave your heart.
THE SHRINE.
TO ------
My fates had destin'd me to roveA long, long pilgrimage of love;
And many an altar on my way
Has lur'd my pious steps to stay;
For, if the saint was young and fair,
I turn'd and sung my vespers there.
This, from a youthful pilgrim's fire,
Is what your pretty saints require:
To pass, nor tell a single bead,
With them would be profane indeed!
But, trust me, all this young devotion
Was but to keep my zeal in motion;
And, ev'ry humbler altar past,
I now have reach'd the shrine at last!
TO A LADY, WITH SOME MANUSCRIPT POEMS.
ON LEAVING THE COUNTRY.
I leave the friends I cherish here—
Perchance some other friends to find,
But surely finding none so dear—
Which votive thus I've trac'd for thee,
May now and then a look engage,
And steal one moment's thought for me.
Whose hearts are not of gentle mould,
Let not the eye that seldom flows
With feeling's tear, my song behold.
With pity, never melt with love;
And such will frown at all I've felt,
And all my loving lays reprove.
Which rather loves to praise than blame,
Should in my page an interest find,
And linger kindly on my name;
By female lips my name be blest:
For, where do all affections thrill
So sweetly as in woman's breast?—
Her eye indulgent wanders o'er,
Could sometimes wake from idle dreams,
And bolder flights of fancy soar;
And Friendship oft his numbers move;
But whisper then, that, “sooth to say,
“His sweetest song was giv'n to Love!”
TO JULIA.
Our souls it cannot, shall not sever;
The heart will seek its kindred heart,
And cling to it as close as ever.
Is all our dream of rapture over?
And does not Julia's bosom bleed
To leave so dear, so fond a lover?
Perhaps she mourns our bliss so fleeting:
But why is Julia's eye so gay,
If Julia's heart like mine is beating?
Of gladness in her blue eye gleaming—
But can the bosom bleed with woe,
While joy is in the glances beaming?
Although your heart were fond of roving,
Nor that, nor all the world beside
Could keep your faithful boy from loving.
And, with you, all that's worth possessing.
Oh! then it will be sweet to die,
When life has lost its only blessing!
TO ------
[Sweet lady, look not thus again]
Those bright deluding smiles recall
A maid remember'd now with pain,
Who was my love, my life, my all!
Sweet poison from her thrilling eye,
Thus would she smile, and lisp, and look,
And I would hear, and gaze, and sigh!
She was her sex's best deceiver!
And oft she swore she'd never rove—
And I was destin'd to believe her!
Of one whose smile could thus betray;
Alas! I think the lovely wile
Again could steal my heart away.
On lips so pure as thine I see,
I fear the heart which she resign'd
Will err again, and fly to thee!
NATURE'S LABELS.
A FRAGMENT.
The soul's reflection in the face;
In vain we dwell on lines and crosses,
Crooked mouth, or short proboscis;
Boobies have look'd as wise and bright
As Plato or the Stagirite:
And many a sage and learned skull
Has peep'd through windows dark and dull.
Since then, though art do all it can,
We ne'er can reach the inward man,
Nor (howsoe'er “learn'd Thebans” doubt)
The inward woman, from without,
Methinks 'twere well if Nature could
(And Nature could, if Nature would)
Some pithy, short descriptions write,
On tablets large, in black and white,
Like labels upon physic-bottles;
And where all men might read—but stay—
As dialectic sages say,
The argument most apt and ample
For common use is the example.
For instance, then, if Nature's care
Had not portray'd, in lines so fair,
The inward soul of Lucy L*nd*n,
This is the label she'd have pinn'd on.
LABEL FIRST.
Within this form there lies enshrin'dThe purest, brightest gem of mind.
Though Feeling's hand may sometimes throw
Upon its charms the shade of woe,
The lustre of the gem, when veil'd,
Shall be but mellow'd, not conceal'd.
That Nature wrote a second label,
They're her own words—at least suppose so—
And boldly pin it on Pomposo.
LABEL SECOND.
When I compos'd the fustian brainOf this redoubted Captain Vain,
I had at hand but few ingredients,
And so was forc'd to use expedients.
I put therein some small discerning,
A grain of sense, a grain of learning;
And when I saw the void behind,
I fill'd it up with—froth and wind!
TO JULIA.
ON HER BIRTHDAY.
Which to crown my beloved was given,
Though some of the leaves might be sullied with tears,
Yet the flow'rs were all gather'd in heaven.
May its verdure for ever be new;
Young Love shall enrich it with many a sigh,
And Sympathy nurse it with dew.
A REFLECTION AT SEA.
Yon little billow heaves its breast,
And foams and sparkles for awhile,—
Then murmuring subsides to rest.
Rises on time's eventful sea;
And, having swell'd a moment there,
Thus melts into eternity!
CLORIS AND FANNY.
I'd make my graceful queen of thee;
While Fanny, wild and artless thing,
Should but thy humble handmaid be.
That, verily, I'm much afraid
I should, in some unlucky minute,
Forsake the mistress for the maid.
THE SHIELD.
And did you not mark the paly form
Which rode on the silvery mist of the heath,
And sung a ghostly dirge in the storm?
That shrieks on the house of woe all night?
Or a shivering fiend that flew to a tomb,
To howl and to feed till the glance of light?
Nor shivering fiend that hung on the blast;
'Twas the shade of Helderic—man of blood—
It screams for the guilt of days that are past.
And scares the gliding ghosts of the heath!
Now on the leafless yew it plays,
Where hangs the shield of this son of death.
Long has it hung from the cold yew's spray;
It is blown by storms and wash'd by rains,
But neither can take the blood away!
Demons dance to the red moon's light;
While the damp boughs creak, and the swinging shield
Sings to the raving spirit of night!
TO JULIA,
WEEPING.
If real woe disturbs your peace,
Come to my bosom, weeping fair!
And I will bid your weeping cease.
With dreams of woe your bosom thrill;
You look so lovely in your tears,
That I must bid you drop them still.
DREAMS.
TO ------
That souls are oft taking the air,
And paying each other a visit,
While bodies are heaven knows where?
Your Soul took a fancy to roam,
For I heard her, on tiptoe so quiet,
Come ask, whether mine was at home.
And they talk'd and they laugh'd the time through;
For, when souls come together at night,
There is no saying what they mayn't do!
Had much to complain and to say,
Of how sadly you wrong and oppress her
By keeping her prison'd all day.
“For a peep now and then to her eye,
“Or, to quiet the fever I feel,
“Just venture abroad on a sigh;
“With some phantom of prudence or terror,
“For fear I should stray into sin,
“Or, what is still worse, into error!
“By daylight, in language and mien,
“I am shut up in corners and places,
“Where truly I blush to be seen!”
My Soul, looking tenderly at her,
Declar'd, as for grace and discretion,
He did not know much of the matter;
“Be at home after midnight, and then
“I will come when your lady's in bed,
“And we'll talk o'er the subject again.”
I suppose to her door to direct him,
And, just after midnight, my dear,
Your polite little Soul may expect him.
TO ROSA.
WRITTEN DURING ILLNESS.
Will soon unlearn the lore it knew;
And when the shrining casket's worn,
The gem within will tarnish too.
Which sinks not with this chain of clay;
Which throbs beyond the chill control
Of with'ring pain or pale decay.
Dissolves the spirit's earthly ties,
Love still attends th' immortal breath,
And makes it purer for the skies!
My soul shall leave this orb of men,
That love which form'd its treasure here,
Shall be its best of treasures then!
Some air-born genius, child of time,
Presided o'er each star that roll'd,
And track'd it through its path sublime;
Shalt through thy mortal orbit stray;
Thy lover's shade, to thee still wed,
Shall linger round thy earthly way.
And play around each starry gem;
I'll bask beneath that lucid eye,
Nor envy worlds of suns to them.
And when that breath at length is free,
Then, Rosa, soul to soul we'll meet,
And mingle to eternity!
SONG.
[The wreath you wove, the wreath you wove]
Is fair—but oh, how fair,
If Pity's hand had stol'n from Love
One leaf to mingle there!
Did gems for dewdrops fall,
One faded leaf where Love had sigh'd
Were sweetly worth them all.
Our emblem well may be;
Its bloom is yours, but hopeless Love
Must keep its tears for me.
THE SALE OF LOVES.
My nets by moonlight laying,
I caught a flight of wanton Loves,
Among the rose-beds playing.
Some just had left their silv'ry shell,
While some were full in feather;
So pretty a lot of Loves to sell,
Were never yet strung together.
Come buy my Loves,
Come buy my Loves,
Ye dames and rose-lipp'd misses!—
They're new and bright,
The cost is light,
For the coin of this isle is kisses.
The coin on her lips was ready;
“I buy,” quoth she, “my Love by weight,
“Full grown, if you please, and steady.”
“Such lasting toys undo one;
“A light little Love that will last to day,—
“To-morrow I'll sport a new one.”
Come buy my Loves,
Come buy my Loves,
Ye dames and rose-lipp'd misses!—
There's some will keep,
Some light and cheap,
At from ten to twenty kisses.
To divert her virgin Muse with,
And pluck sometimes a quill from his wing,
To indite her billet-doux with.
Poor Cloe would give for a well-fledg'd pair
Her only eye, if you'd ask it;
And Tabitha begg'd, old toothless fair,
For the youngest Love in the basket.
Come buy my Loves, &c. &c.
One worth them all together;
He smiled, and pruned his feather.
She wish'd the boy—'twas more than whim—
Her looks, her sighs betray'd it;
But kisses were not enough for him,
I ask'd a heart, and she paid it!
Good-by, my Loves,
Good-by, my Loves,
'Twould make you smile to've seen us
First trade for this
Sweet child of bliss,
And then nurse the boy between us.
TO ------
[The world had just begun to steal]
Each hope that led me lightly on;
I felt not, as I us'd to feel,
And life grew dark and love was gone.
No lip to mingle pleasure's breath,
No circling arms to draw me near—
'Twas gloomy, and I wish'd for death.
Oh! something seem'd to tell me then.
That I was yet too young to die,
And hope and bliss might bloom again.
Your kindling cheek, you lighted home
Some feeling, which my heart had lost,
And peace, which far had learn'd to roam.
Hope look'd so new and Love so kind,
That, though I mourn, I yet forgive
The ruin they have left behind.
The dream, that wishing boyhood knows,
Is but a bright, beguiling spell,
That only lives while passion glows:
When the heart's sunny morning fleets,
You know not then how close it twines
Round the first kindred soul it meets.
Who, while his youth's enchantments fall,
Finds something dear to rest upon,
Which pays him for the loss of all.
TO ------
[Never mind how the pedagogue proses]
You want not antiquity's stamp;
A lip, that such fragrance discloses,
Oh! never should smell of the lamp.
Hath long set the Loves at defiance,
Now, done with the science of bliss,
May take to the blisses of science.
Ah, Fanny, they're pitiful sages,
Who could not in one of your looks
Read more than in millions of pages.
Better light than she studies above;
And Music would borrow your sighs
As the melody fittest for Love.
If to count your own charms you endeavour;
And Eloquence glows on your lip
When you swear, that you'll love me for ever.
Of arts is assembled in you;—
A course of more exquisite science
Man never need wish to pursue.
May confer a diploma of hearts,
With my lip thus I seal your degree,
My divine little Mistress of Arts!
ON THE DEATH OF A LADY.
Nor sees my tears nor hears my sighs,
Then will I weep, in anguish weep,
Till the last heart's drop fills mine eyes.
And mingles in our misery;
Then, then my breaking heart I'll seal—
Thou shalt not hear one sigh from me.
But sullen clouds the day deform:
Like thee was that young, orient beam,
Like death, alas, that sullen storm!
So link'd thy soul was with the sky;
Yet, ah, we held thee all so dear,
We thought thou wert not form'd to die.
INCONSTANCY.
When surely there's nothing in nature more common?
She vows to be true, and while vowing she leaves me—
And could I expect any more from a woman?
And Mahomet's doctrine was not too severe,
When he held that you were but materials of pleasure,
And reason and thinking were out of your sphere.
He thinks that an age of anxiety's paid;
But, oh, while he's blest, let him die at the minute—
If he live but a day, he'll be surely betray'd.
THE NATAL GENIUS.
A DREAM.
TO ------ THE MORNING OF HER BIRTHDAY.
I dreamt I was the airy sprite
That on thy natal moment smil'd;
And thought I wafted on my wing
Those flow'rs which in Elysium spring,
To crown my lovely mortal child.
Heart's ease along thy path I shed,
Which was to bloom through all thy years;
Nor yet did I forget to bind
Love's roses, with his myrtle twin'd,
And dew'd by sympathetic tears.
Which Fancy, at her magic noon,
Bade me to Nona's image pay;
And were it thus my fate to be
Thy little guardian deity,
How blest around thy steps I'd play!
Calm as some lonely shepherd's song
That's heard at distance in the grove;
No cloud should ever dim thy sky,
No thorns along thy pathway lie,
But all be beauty, peace, and love.
To thee one blight upon his wing,
So gently o'er thy brow he'd fly;
And death itself should but be felt
Like that of daybeams, when they melt,
Bright to the last, in evening's sky!
ELEGIAC STANZAS, SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY JULIA,
ON THE DEATH OF HER BROTHER.
Though every day I've counted o'er
Hath brought a new and quick'ning smart
To wounds that rankled fresh before;
Of tender links by nature tied;
Though hope deceiv'd, and pleasure left;
Though friends betray'd and foes belied;
After the sunset of delight;
So like the star which ushers day,
We scarce can think it heralds night!—
My weary heart at length should rest,
And, fainting from the waves of life,
Find harbour in a brother's breast.
Was bright with honour's purest ray;
He was the dearest, gentlest youth—
Ah, why then was he torn away?
To soothe his Julia's every woe;
He should have chas'd each bitter tear,
And not have caus'd those tears to flow.
The fruits of genius, nurs'd by taste;
While Science, with a fost'ring hand,
Upon his brow her chaplet plac'd.
Grow rich in all that makes men dear;—
Enlighten'd, social, and refin'd,
In friendship firm, in love sincere.
And such the hopes that fate denied;—
We lov'd, but ah! could scarcely tell
How deep, how dearly, till he died!
Twin'd with my very heart he grew;
And by that fate which breaks the chain,
The heart is almost broken too.
TO THE LARGE AND BEAUTIFUL MISS ------
IN ALLUSION TO SOME PARTNERSHIP IN A LOTTERY SHARE.
IMPROMPTU.
Where in blanks and in prizes we deal;
But how comes it that you, such a capital prize,
Should so long have remain'd in the wheel?
To me such a ticket should roll,
A sixteenth, Heav'n knows! were sufficient for me;
For what could I do with the whole?
A DREAM.
On Cupid's burning shrine:
I thought he stole thy heart away,
And plac'd it near to mine.
Like ice before the sun;
Till both a glow congenial felt,
And mingled into one!
TO ------
[With all my soul, then, let us part]
Since both are anxious to be free;
And I will send you home your heart,
If you will send back mine to me.
But joy must often change its wing;
And spring would be but gloomy weather,
If we had nothing else but spring.
A more devoted, fond, and true one,
With rosier cheek or sweeter mind—
Enough for me that she's a new one.
Where we have loiter'd long in bliss;
And you may down that pathway rove,
While I shall take my way through this.
ANACREONTIC.
[“She never look'd so kind before—]
“Yet why the wanton's smile recall?
“I've seen this witchery o'er and o'er,
“'Tis hollow, vain, and heartless all!”
The cup which she so late had tasted;
Upon whose rim still fresh remain'd
The breath, so oft in falsehood wasted.
As if 'twere not of her I sang;
But still the notes on Lamia hung—
On whom but Lamia could they hang?
Like diamonds in some Eastern river;
That kiss, for which, if worlds were mine,
A world for every kiss I'd give her.
With flushes of love's genial hue;—
A mould transparent, as if form'd
To let the spirit's light shine through.
Were sweet, as if the very air
From Lamia's lip hung o'er the chords,
And Lamia's voice still warbled there!
And when of vows and oaths I spoke,
Of truth and hope's seducing dream—
The chord beneath my finger broke.
Are lutes too frail and hearts too willing;
Any hand, whate'er its touch,
Can set their chords or pulses thrilling.
And when you think Heav'n's joys await you,
The nymph will change, the chord will break—
Oh Love, oh Music, how I hate you!
TO JULIA.
From yonder oak the ivy sever;
They seem'd in very being twin'd;
Yet now the oak is fresh as ever!
Torn from its dear and only stay,
In drooping widowhood it pines,
And scatters all its bloom away.
Till Fate disturb'd their tender ties:
Thus gay indifference blooms in thine,
While mine, deserted, droops and dies!
HYMN OF A VIRGIN OF DELPHI,
AT THE TOMB OF HER MOTHER.
Shall Vesper light our dewy way
Along the rocks of Crissa's shore,
To hymn the fading fires of day;
No more to Tempé's distant vale
In holy musings shall we roam,
Through summer's glow and winter's gale,
To bear the mystic chaplets home.
By nature warm'd and led by thee,
In every breeze was taught to feel
The breathings of a Deity.
Guide of my heart! still hovering round,
Thy looks, thy words are still my own—
I see thee raising from the ground
Some laurel, by the winds o'erthrown,
And hear thee say, “This humble bough
“Was planted for a doom divine;
“And, though it droop in languor now,
“Shall flourish on the Delphic shrine!
“Thus, in the vale of earthly sense,
“Though sunk awhile the spirit lies,
“A viewless hand shall cull it thence,
“To bloom immortal in the skies!”
By thee was taught so sweetly well,
Thy words fell soft as vernal snow,
And all was brightness where they fell!
Fond soother of my infant tear,
Fond sharer of my infant joy,
Am I not still thy soul's employ?
Oh yes—and, as in former days,
When, meeting on the sacred mount,
Our nymphs awak'd their choral lays,
And danc'd around Cassotis' fount;
As then, 'twas all thy wish and care,
That mine should be the simplest mien,
My lyre and voice the sweetest there,
My foot the lightest o'er the green:
So still, each look and step to mould,
Thy guardian care is round me spread,
Arranging every snowy fold,
And guiding every mazy tread.
And, when I lead the hymning choir,
Thy spirit still, unseen and free,
Hovers between my lip and lyre,
And weds them into harmony.
Flow, Plistus, flow, thy murmuring wave
Shall never drop its silv'ry tear
Upon so pure, so blest a grave,
To memory so entirely dear!
The laurel, for the common uses of the temple, for adorning the altars and sweeping the pavement, was supplied by a tree near the fountain of Castalia; but upon all important occasions, they sent to Tempé for their laurel. We find, in Pausanias, that this valley supplied the branches, of which the temple was originally constructed; and Plutarch says, in his Dialogue on Music, “The youth who brings the Tempic laurel to Delphi is always attended by a player on the flute.” Αλλα μην και τω κατακομιζοντι παιδι την Τεμπικην δαφνην εις Δελφους παρομαρτει αυλητης.
SYMPATHY.
TO JULIA.
Sulpicia.
The genuine twins of Sympathy,
They live with one sensation:
In joy or grief, but most in love,
Like chords in unison they move,
And thrill with like vibration.
Thy vital pulse shall cease to play
When mine no more is moving;
Since, now, to feel a joy alone
Were worse to thee than feeling none
So twinn'd are we in loving!
THE TEAR.
And chilly was the midnight gloom,
When by the damp grave Ellen wept—
Fond maid! it was her Lindor's tomb!
Congeal'd it as it flow'd away:
All night it lay an ice-drop there,
At morn it glitter'd in the ray.
Who saw this bright, this frozen gem,
To dew-ey'd Pity brought the tear,
And hung it on her diadem!
THE SNAKE.
Within a myrtle arbour lay,
When near us, from a rosy bed,
A little Snake put forth its head.
“Yonder the fatal emblem lies!
“Who could expect such hidden harm
“Beneath the rose's smiling charm?”
Less à-propos than this from her.
Half-smiling, pray'd it might not be.
“No,” said the maiden—and, alas,
Her eyes spoke volumes, while she said it—
“Long as the snake is in the grass,
“One may, perhaps, have cause to dread it:
“And when we know for what they wink so,
“One must be very simple, dear,
“To let it wound one—don't you think so?”
TO ROSA.
Once such lays inspired her lute!
Never doth a sweeter song
Steal the breezy lyre along,
When the wind, in odours dying,
Wooes it with enamour'd sighing.
Once a tale of peace it sung
To her lover's throbbing breast—
Then was he divinely blest!
Ah! but Rosa loves no more,
Therefore Rosa's song is o'er;
And her lute neglected lies;
And her boy forgotten sighs.
Silent lute—forgotten lover—
Rosa's love and song are over!
ELEGIAC STANZAS.
[When wearied wretches sink to sleep]
How heavenly soft their slumbers lie!
How sweet is death to those who weep,
To those who weep and long to die!
Where flowrets deck the green earth's breast?
'Tis there I wish to lay my head,
'Tis there I wish to sleep at rest.
None but the dews at twilight given!
Oh, let not sighs disturb the gloom,—
None but the whispering winds of heaven!
LOVE AND MARRIAGE.
Still a wayward truant prove:
Where I love, I must not marry;
Where I marry, cannot love.
With the least presuming mind;
Learned without affectation;
Not deceitful, yet refin'd;
Gay, but not too lightly free;
Chaste as snow, and yet not frigid;
Fond, yet satisfied with me:
All that heav'n to earth allows,
I should be too much her lover
Ever to become her spouse.
Summer garments suit him best;
Bliss itself is not worth having,
If we're by compulsion blest.
ANACREONTIC.
[I fill'd to thee, to thee I drank]
I nothing did but drink and fill;
The bowl by turns was bright and blank,
'Twas drinking, filling, drinking still.
Thy image in this ample cup,
That I might see the dimpled saint,
To whom I quaff'd my nectar up.
Now blushes through the wave at me;
Every roseate drop I sip
Is just like kissing wine from thee.
For, ever when the draught I drain,
Thy lip invites another kiss,
And—in the nectar flows again.
And may that eyelid never shine
Beneath a darker, bitterer tear
Than bathes it in this bowl of mine!
THE SURPRISE.
Chloris, I swear, by all I ever swore,That from this hour I shall not love thee more.—
“What! love no more? Oh! why this alter'd vow?”
Because I cannot love thee more—than now!
TO MISS ------,
ON HER ASKING THE AUTHOR WHY SHE HAD SLEEPLESS NIGHTS.
And in thy breath his pinion dips,
Who suns him in thy radiant eyes,
And faints upon thy sighing lips:
That us'd to shade thy looks of light;
And why those eyes their vigil keep,
When other suns are sunk in night?
Has never throbb'd with guilty sting;
Her bosom is the sweetest nest
Where Slumber could repose his wing!
Like vernal roses in the sun,
Have ne'er by shame been taught to blush,
Except for what her eyes have done!
Does slumber from her eyelids rove?
What is her heart's impassion'd care?—
Perhaps, oh sylph! perhaps, 'tis love.
THE WONDER.
Whose heart can love without deceit,
And I will range the world around,
To sigh one moment at her feet.
What air receives her blessed sigh,
A pilgrimage of years I'll roam
To catch one sparkle of her eye!
While truth within her bosom lies,
I'll gaze upon her morn and night,
Till my heart leave me through my eyes.
I'll own all miracles are true;
To make one maid sincere and fair,
Oh, 'tis the utmost Heav'n can do!
LYING.
My lips have breath'd you many a lie;
And who, with such delights in view,
Would lose them, for a lie or two?
Lies are, my dear, the soul of loving.
If half we tell the girls were true,
If half we swear to think and do,
Were aught but lying's bright illusion,
This world would be in strange confusion.
If ladies' eyes were, every one,
As lovers swear, a radiant sun,
Astronomy must leave the skies,
To learn her lore in ladies' eyes.
Oh, no—believe me, lovely girl,
When nature turns your teeth to pearl,
Your amber locks to golden wire,
Then, only then can Heaven decree,
That you should live for only me,
Or I for you, as night and morn,
We've swearing kist, and kissing sworn.
For once I'll tell you truth, my dear.
Whenever you may chance to meet
Some loving youth, whose love is sweet,
Long as you're false and he believes you,
Long as you trust and he deceives you,
So long the blissful bond endures,
And while he lies, his heart is yours:
But, oh! you've wholly lost the youth
The instant that he tells you truth.
ANACREONTIC.
[Friend of my soul, this goblet sip]
'Twill chase that pensive tear;
'Tis not so sweet as woman's lip,
But, oh! 'tis more sincere.
Like her delusive beam,
'Twill steal away thy mind:
But, truer than love's dream,
It leaves no sting behind.
These flow'rs were cull'd at noon;—
Like woman's love the rose will fade,
But, ah! not half so soon.
For though the flower's decay'd,
Its fragrance is not o'er;
But once when love's betray'd,
Its sweet life blooms no more.
THE PHILOSOPHER ARISTIPPUS TO A LAMP
WHICH HAD BEEN GIVEN HIM BY LAIS.
“The faithful Lamp that, many a night,
“Beside thy Lais' lonely bed
“Has kept its little watch of light.
“And fix her eye upon its flame,
“Till, weary, she has sunk to sleep,
“Repeating her beloved's name.
“Thy step through learning's sacred way;
“And when those studious eyes shall read,
“At midnight, by its lonely ray,
“Of things sublime, of nature's birth,
“Of all that's bright in heaven or earth,
“Oh, think that she, by whom 'twas given,
“Adores thee more than earth or heaven!”
On which thy midnight beam has hung ;
The head reclin'd, the graceful arm
Across the brow of ivory flung;
The sever'd lip's unconscious sighs,
The fringe that from the half-shut lid
Adown the cheek of roses lies:
And long as all shall charm my heart,
I'll love my little Lamp of gold—
My Lamp and I shall never part.
In fancy's hour, thy gentle rays
Through poesy's enchanting maze.
Thy flame shall light the page refin'd,
Where still we catch the Chian's breath,
Where still the bard, though cold in death,
Has left his soul unquench'd behind.
Or, o'er thy humbler legend shine,
Oh man of Ascra's dreary glades.
To whom the nightly warbling Nine
A wand of inspiration gave ,
Pluck'd from the greenest tree, that shades
The crystal of Castalia's wave.
We'll cull the sages' deep-hid store,
From Science steal her golden clue.
And every mystic path pursue,
Where Nature, far from vulgar eyes,
Through labyrinths of wonder flies.
How fleeting is this world below,
Where all that meets the morning light,
Is chang'd before the fall of night!
“Swift, swift the tide of being runs,
“And Time, who bids thy flame expire,
“Will also quench yon heaven of suns.”
Can never chain one feathery hour;
If every print we leave to-day
To-morrow's wave will sweep away;
Who pauses to inquire of heaven
Why were the fleeting treasures given,
The sunny days, the shady nights,
And all their brief but dear delights,
And man should think it crime to lose?
Who that has cull'd a fresh-blown rose
Will ask it why it breathes and glows,
Unmindful of the blushing ray,
In which it shines its soul away;
Unmindful of the scented sigh,
With which it dies and loves to die.
One precious moment giv'n to thee—
Oh! by my Lais' lip, 'tis worth
The sage's immortality.
That would our joys one hour delay!
Alas, the feast of soul and sense
Love calls us to in youth's bright day,
If not soon tasted, fleets away.
Thy splendour on a lifeless page;—
Whate'er my blushing Lais said
Of thoughtful lore and studies sage,
'Twas mockery all—her glance of joy
Told me thy dearest, best employ.
And, soon as night shall close the eye
Of heaven's young wanderer in the west;
When seers are gazing on the sky,
To find their future orbs of rest;
Unseen but to those worlds above,
And, led by thy mysterious ray,
Steal to the night-bower of my love.
It does not appear to have been very difficult to become a philosopher amongst the ancients. A moderate store of learning, with a considerable portion of confidence, and just wit enough to produce an occasional apophthegm, seem to have been all the qualifications necessary for the purpose. The principles of moral science were so very imperfectly understood that the founder of a new sect, in forming his ethical code, might consult either fancy or temperament, and adapt it to his own passions and propensities; so that Mahomet, with a little more learning, might have flourished as a philosopher in those days, and would have required but the polish of the schools to become the rival of Aristippus in morality. In the science of nature, too, though some valuable truths were discovered by them, they seemed hardly to know they were truths, or at least were as well satisfied with errors; and Xenophanes, who asserted that the stars were igneous clouds, lighted up every night and extinguished again in the morning, was thought and styled a philosopher, as generally as he who anticipated Newton in developing the arrangement of the universe.
For this opinion of Xenophanes, see Plutarch. de Placit. Philosoph. lib. ii. cap. 13. It is impossible to read this treatise of Plutarch, without alternately admiring the genius, and smiling at the absurdities of the philosophers.
The ancients had their lucernæ cubiculariæ or bedchamber lamps, which, as the Emperor Galienus said, “nil cras meminere;” and, with the same commendation of secrecy, Praxagora addresses her lamp in Aristophanes, Εκκλης. We may judge how fanciful they were, in the use and embellishment of their lamps, from the famous symbolic Lucerna, which we find in the Romanum Museum Mich. Ang. Causei, p. 127.
Hesiod, who tells us in melancholy terms of his father's flight to the wretched village of Ascra. Εργ. και Ημερ. v. 251.
Π(ειν τα ολα ποταμον δικην, as expressed among the dogmas of Heraclitus the Ephesian, and with the same image by Seneca, in whom we find a beautiful diffusion of the thought. “Nemo est mane, qui fuit pridie. Corpora nostra rapiuntur fluminum more; quidquid vides currit cum tempore. Nihil ex his quæ videmus manet. Ego ipse, dum loquor mutari ipsa, mutatus sum,” &c.
Aristippus considered motion as the principle of happiness, in which idea he differed from the Epicureans, who looked to a state of repose as the only true voluptuousness, and avoided even the too lively agitations of pleasure, as a violent and ungraceful derangement of the senses.
Maupertuis has been still more explicit than this philosopher, in ranking the pleasures of sense above the sublimest pursuits of wisdom. Speaking of the infant man, in his production, he calls him, “une nouvelle créature, qui pourra comprendre les choses les plus sublimes, et ce qui est bien au-dessus, qui pourra gouter les mêmes plaisirs.” See his Vénus Physique. This appears to be one of the efforts at Fontenelle's gallantry of manner, for which the learned President is so well and justly ridiculed in the Akakia of Voltaire.
Maupertuis may be thought to have borrowed from the ancient Aristippus that indiscriminate theory of pleasures which he has set forth in his Essai de Philosophe Morale, and for which he was so very justly condemned. Aristippus, according to Laertius, held μη διαφερειν τε ηδονην ηδονης, which irrational sentiment has been adopted by Maupertuis: “Tant qu on ne considère que l'état présent, tous les plaisirs sont du même genre,” &c. &c.
TO MRS. ---.
ON HER BEAUTIFUL TRANSLATION OF VOITURE'S KISS.
Pour savourer le miel qui sur la vôtre étoit;
Mais en me retirant, elle resta derrière,
Tant de ce doux plaisir l'amorce l'a restoit.
Voiture.
To breathe his spirit through a kiss;
And lose within so sweet a tomb
The trembling messenger of bliss!
That it again could ravish'd be;
For in the kiss that thou didst steal,
His life and soul have fled to thee.
RONDEAU.
[“Good night! good night!”—And is it so?]
And must I from my Rosa go?
Oh Rosa, say “Good night!” once more,
And I'll repeat it o'er and o'er,
Till the first glance of dawning light
Shall find us saying, still, “Good night.”
But whisper still, “A minute stay;”
And I will stay, and every minute
Shall have an age of transport in it;
Till Time himself shall stay his flight,
To listen to our sweet “Good night.”
And tell me it is time to fly:
And I will vow, will swear to go,
While still that sweet voice murmurs “No!”
Till slumber seal our weary sight—
And then, my love, my soul, “Good night!”
SONG.
[Why does azure deck the sky?]
'Tis to be like thy looks of blue;
Why is red the rose's dye?
Because it is thy blushes' hue.
All that's fair, by Love's decree,
Has been made resembling thee!
But to be like thy bosom fair?
Why are solar beams so bright?
That they may seem thy golden hair!
All that's bright, by Love's decree,
Has been made resembling thee!
Oh! 'tis thine in her we see!
Why has music power to melt?
Oh! because it speaks like thee.
All that's sweet, by Love's decree,
Has been made resembling thee!
TO ROSA.
And puts his little bark to sea,
Is he who, lur'd by smiling eyes,
Consigns his simple heart to thee.
And sadly may the bark be tost;
For thou art sure to change thy mind,
And then the wretched heart is lost!
WRITTEN IN A COMMONPLACE BOOK, CALLED “THE BOOK OF FOLLIES;”
IN WHICH EVERY ONE THAT OPENED IT WAS TO CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING.
TO THE BOOK OF FOLLIES.
This tribute's from a wretched elf,Who hails thee, emblem of himself.
The book of life, which I have trac'd,
Has been, like thee, a motley waste
Of follies scribbled o'er and o'er,
One folly bringing hundreds more.
Some have indeed been writ so neat,
In characters so fair, so sweet,
That those who judge not too severely,
Have said they lov'd such follies dearly
Yet still, O book! the allusion stands;
For these were penn'd by female hands:
Have all been scribbled so uncouth
That Prudence, with a with'ring look,
Disdainful, flings away the book.
Like thine, its pages here and there
Have oft been stain'd with blots of care;
And sometimes hours of peace, I own,
Upon some fairer leaves have shown,
White as the snowings of that heav'n
By which those hours of peace were given.
But now no longer—such, oh, such
The blast of Disappointment's touch!—
No longer now those hours appear;
Each leaf is sullied by a tear:
Blank, blank is ev'ry page with care,
Not ev'n a folly brightens there.
Will they yet brighten?—never, never!
Then shut the book, O God, for ever!
TO ROSA.
At a meeting of rapture like this,
When the glooms of the past and the sorrow of years
Have been paid by one moment of bliss?
Which dwells on her memory yet?
Do they flow, like the dews of the love-breathing night,
From the warmth of the sun that has set?
That smile, which is loveliest then;
And if such are the drops that delight can beguile,
Thou shalt weep them again and again.
LIGHT SOUNDS THE HARP.
Light sounds the harp when the combat is over,When heroes are resting, and joy is in bloom;
When laurels hang loose from the brow of the lover,
And Cupid makes wings of the warrior's plume.
But, when the foe returns,
Again the hero burns;
High flames the sword in his hand once more:
The clang of mingling arms
Is then the sound that charms,
And brazen notes of war, that stirring trumpets pour;—
Then, again comes the Harp, when the combat is over—
When heroes are resting, and Joy is in bloom—
When laurels hang loose from the brow of the lover,
And Cupid makes wings of the warrior's plume.
Lay lull'd on the white arm of Beauty to rest,
When round his rich armour the myrtle hung twining,
And flights of young doves made his helmet their nest.
But, when the battle came,
The hero's eye breathed flame:
Soon from his neck the white arm was flung;
While, to his wakening ear,
No other sounds were dear
But brazen notes of war, by thousand trumpets sung.
But then came the light harp, when danger was ended,
And Beauty once more lull'd the War-God to rest;
When tresses of gold with his laurels lay blended,
And flights of young doves made his helmet their nest.
FROM THE GREEK OF MELEAGER.
And speak my Heliodora's name.
Repeat its magic o'er and o'er,
And let the sound my lips adore,
Live in the breeze, till every tone,
And word, and breath, speaks her alone.
It was but last delicious night,
It circled her luxuriant hair,
And caught her eyes' reflected light.
Oh! haste, and twine it round my brow.
'Tis all of her that's left me now.
To find the nymph no longer here—
No longer, where such heavenly charms
As hers should be—within these arms.
Ειπε, συν ακρητω το γλυκυ μισγ' ονομα.
Και μοι τον βρεχθεντα μυροις και χθιζον εοντα,
Μναμοσυνον κεινας, αμφιτιθει στεφανον:
Δακρυει φιλεραστον ιδου ροδον, ουνεκα κειναν
Αλλοθι κ' ου κολποις ημετεροις εσρρα.
Brunck. Analect. tom. i. p. 28.
SONG.
[Fly from the world, O Bessy! to me]
Thou wilt never find any sincerer;
I'll give up the world, O Bessy! for thee,
I can never meet any that's dearer.
Then tell me no more, with a tear and a sigh,
That our loves will be censur'd by many;
All, all have their follies, and who will deny
That ours is the sweetest of any?
Have we felt as if virtue forbid it?—
Have we felt as if heav'n denied them to meet?—
No, rather 'twas heav'n that did it.
So innocent, love, is the joy we then sip,
So little of wrong is there in it,
That I wish all my errors were lodg'd on your lip,
And I'd kiss them away in a minute.
From a world which I know thou despisest;
And slumber will hover as light o'er our bed
As e'er on the couch of the wisest.
And when o'er our pillow the tempest is driven,
And thou, pretty innocent, fearest,
I'll tell thee, it is not the chiding of heav'n,
'Tis only our lullaby, dearest.
Looking back on the scene of our errors,
A sigh from my Bessy shall plead then above,
And Death be disarm'd of his terrors.
And each to the other embracing will say,
“Farewell! let us hope we're forgiven.”
Thy last fading glance will illumine the way,
And a kiss be our passport to heaven!
THE RESEMBLANCE.
Donna, quant' e possibile, in altrui
La desiata vostra forma vera.
Petrarc. Sonett. 14.
That led my pliant heart astray,
I grant, there's not a power above,
Could wipe the faithless crime away.
In every look so like to thee
That, underneath yon blessed sun,
So fair there are but thou and she.
She held with thine a kindred sway,
And wore the only shape on earth
That could have lured my soul to stray.
'Twas love that wak'd the fond excess;
My heart had been more true to thee,
Had mine eye priz'd thy beauty less.
FANNY, DEAREST.
Fanny, dearest, for thee I'd sigh;
And every smile on my cheek should turn
To tears when thou art nigh.
But, between love, and wine, and sleep,
So busy a life I live,
That even the time it would take to weep
Is more than my heart can give.
Then bid me not to despair and pine,
Fanny, dearest of all the dears!
The Love that's order'd to bathe in wine,
Would be sure to take cold in tears.
Fanny, dearest, thy image lies;
But, ah, the mirror would cease to shine,
If dimm'd too often with sighs.
They lose the half of beauty's light,
Who view it through sorrow's tear;
That I keep my eye-beam clear.
Then wait no longer till tears shall flow,
Fanny, dearest—the hope is vain;
If sunshine cannot dissolve thy snow,
I shall never attempt it with rain.
THE RING.
TO ------
Oh! think, how many a future year,
Of placid smile and downy wing,
May sleep within its holy sphere.
Though love hath ne'er the mystery warm'd;
Yet heav'n will shed a soothing beam,
To bless the bond itself hath form'd.
Oh! it doth ask, with witching power,
If heaven can ever bless the tie
Where love inwreaths no genial flower?
Or all the boast of virtue's o'er;
Go—hie thee to the sage's book,
And learn from him to feel no more.
That brings my pulses close to thine,
Tells me I want thy aid as much—
Ev'n more, alas, than thou dost mine.
A moment turn those eyes away,
And let me, if I can, forget
The light that leads my soul astray.
That our hearts bear one common seal;—
Think, Lady, think, how man's deceit
Can seem to sigh and feign to feel.
Like daybeams through the morning air,
Hath gradual stole, and I have caught
The feeling ere it kindled there;
Perhaps was but the child of art,
The guile of one, who long hath play'd
With all these wily nets of heart.
Though few the years I yet have told,
Canst thou believe I've lived till now,
With loveless heart or senses cold?
This wild and wandering heart hath mov'd;
With some it sported, wild and vain,
While some it dearly, truly, lov'd.
To theirs hath been as fondly laid
The words to thee I warmly say,
To them have been as warmly said.
Worthless alike, or fix'd or free;
Think of the pure, bright soul thou art,
And—love not me, oh love not me.
What, still that look and still that sigh!
Dost thou not feel my counsel then?
Oh! no, beloved,—nor do I.
TO THE INVISIBLE GIRL.
That you're not a true daughter of ether and light,
Nor have any concern with those fanciful forms
That dance upon rainbows and ride upon storms;
That, in short, you're a woman; your lip and your eye
As mortal as ever drew gods from the sky.
But I will not believe them—no, Science, to you
I have long bid a last and a careless adieu:
Still flying from Nature to study her laws,
And dulling delight by exploring its cause,
You forget how superior, for mortals below,
Is the fiction they dream to the truth that they know.
Oh! who, that has e'er enjoyed rapture complete,
Would ask how we feel it, or why it is sweet;
Through the medium refin'd of a glance or a sigh;
Is there one, who but once would not rather have known it,
Than written, with Harvey, whole volumes upon it?
You must surely be one of those spirits, that rove
By the bank where, at twilight, the poet reclines,
When the star of the west on his solitude shines,
And the magical fingers of fancy have hung
Every breeze with a sigh, every leaf with a tongue.
Oh! hint to him then, 'tis retirement alone
Can hallow his harp or ennoble its tone;
Like you, with a veil of seclusion between,
His song to the world let him utter unseen,
And like you, a legitimate child of the spheres,
Escape from the eye to enrapture the ears.
In the wearisome ways I am fated to rove,
To have you thus ever invisibly nigh,
Inhaling for ever your song and your sigh!
I might sometimes converse with my nymph of the air,
And turn with distaste from the clamorous crew,
To steal in the pauses one whisper from you.
We shall hold in the air a communion divine,
As sweet as, of old, was imagin'd to dwell
In the grotto of Numa, or Socrates' cell.
And oft, at those lingering moments of night,
When the heart's busy thoughts have put slumber to flight,
You shall come to my pillow and tell me of love,
Such as angel to angel might whisper above.
Sweet spirit!—and then, could you borrow the tone
Of that voice, to my ear like some fairy-song known,
The voice of the one upon earth, who has twin'd
With her being for ever my heart and my mind,
Though lonely and far from the light of her smile,
An exile, and weary and hopeless the while,
Could you shed for a moment her voice on my ear,
I will think, for that moment, that Cara is near;
And kisses my eyelid and breathes on my cheek,
And tells me, the night shall go rapidly by,
For the dawn of our hope, of our heaven is nigh.
It will lighten the lapse of full many an hour;
And, let fortune's realities frown as they will,
Hope, fancy, and Cara may smile for me still.
THE RING.
A TALE.
—Ovid. Amor. lib. ii. eleg. 15.
When Rupert was to wed
The fairest maid in Saxony,
And take her to his bed.
The feast and sports began;
The men admir'd the happy maid,
The maids the happy man.
The day was pass'd along;
And some the featly dance amus'd,
And some the dulcet song.
Disported through the bowers,
And deck'd her robe, and crown'd her head
With motley bridal flowers.
Within the castle walls,
Sat listening to the choral strains
That echo'd through the halls.
Unto a spacious court,
To strike the bounding tennis-ball
In feat and manly sport.
The wedding-ring so bright,
Which was to grace the lily hand
Of Isabel that night.
Or lose it in the play,
He look'd around the court, to see
Where he the ring might lay.
Which there full long had been;
It might a Heathen goddess be,
Or else, a Heathen queen.
He tried the ring to fit;
And, thinking it was safest there,
Thereon he fasten'd it.
Till they were wearied all,
And messengers announc'd to them
Their dinner in the hall.
Unto the statue went;
But, oh, how shock'd was he to find
The marble finger bent!
With firm and mighty clasp;
In vain he tried, and tried, and tried,
He could not loose the grasp!
As well his mind might be;
“I'll come,” quoth he, “at night again,
“When none are here to see.”
He thought upon his ring;
And marvell'd sorely what could mean
So very strange a thing!
He hied without delay,
Resolv'd to break the marble hand
And force the ring away.
The ring was there no more,
And yet the marble hand ungrasp'd,
And open as before!
But nothing could he find;
Then to the castle hied he back
With sore bewilder'd mind.
The night in dancing flew;
The youth another ring procur'd,
And none the adventure knew.
The hours of love advance:
Rupert almost forgets to think
Upon the morn's mischance.
In blushing sweetness lay,
Like flowers, half-open'd by the dawn,
And waiting for the day.
In youthful beauty glows,
Like Phœbus, when he bends to cast
His beams upon a rose.
Nor let the rest be told,
If 'twere not for the horrid tale
It yet has to unfold.
A death cold carcass found;
He saw it not, but thought he felt
Its arms embrace him round.
But found the phantom still;
In vain he shrunk, it clipp'd him round,
With damp and deadly chill!
A kiss of horror gave;
'Twas like the smell from charnel vaults,
Or from the mould'ring grave!
Then cried he to his wife,
“Oh! save me from this horrid fiend,
“My Isabel! my life!”
She look'd around in vain;
And much she mourn'd the mad conceit
That rack'd her Rupert's brain.
These words to Rupert came:
(Oh God! while he did hear the words
What terrors shook his frame!)
“Thou gav'st to-day to me;
“And thou'rt to me for ever wed,
“As I am wed to thee!”
Cold-chilling by his side,
And strain'd him with such deadly grasp,
He thought he should have died.
The horrid phantom fled,
And left th' affrighted youth to weep
By Isabel in bed.
Was seen on Rupert's brows;
Fair Isabel was likewise sad,
But strove to cheer her spouse.
Of coming night with fear:
Alas, that he should dread to view
The bed that should be dear!
Again their couch they press'd;
Poor Rupert hop'd that all was o'er,
And look'd for love and rest.
The fiend was at his side,
And, as it strain'd him in its grasp,
With howl exulting cried:—
“The ring thou gav'st to me;
“And thou'rt to me for ever wed,
“As I am wed to thee!”
He started from the bed;
And thus to his bewilder'd wife
The trembling Rupert said:
“A shape of horrors here,
“That strains me to its deadly kiss,
“And keeps me from my dear?”
“No shape of horrors see;
“And much I mourn the phantasy
“That keeps my dear from me.”
In terrors pass'd away,
Nor did the demon vanish thence
Before the dawn of day.
“Dear partner of my woe,
“To Father Austin's holy cave
“This instant will I go.”
Who acted wonders maint—
Whom all the country round believ'd
A devil or a saint!
Then Rupert straightway went;
And told him all, and ask'd him how
These horrors to prevent.
Retir'd awhile to pray;
And, having pray'd for half an hour
Thus to the youth did say:
“Which I will tell to thee;
“Be there this eve, at fall of night,
“And list what thou shalt see.
“In strange disorder'd crowd,
“Travelling by torchlight through the roads,
“With noises strange and loud.
“Terrific towering o'er,
“Will make thee know him at a glance,
“So I need say no more.
“They'll quick be understood;
“Thou need'st not fear, but give them straight,
“I've scrawl'd them with my blood!”
In pale amazement went
To where the cross-roads met, as he
Was by the Father sent.
In strange disorder'd crowd,
Travelling by torchlight through the roads,
With noises strange and loud.
Rupert beheld from far
A female form of wanton mien
High seated on a car.
The loosely vested dame,
Thought of the marble statue's look,
For hers was just the same.
With eyeballs flashing death;
Whene'er he breath'd, a sulphur'd smoke
Came burning in his breath.
Terrific towering o'er;
“Yes, yes,” said Rupert, “this is he,
“And I need ask no more.”
The tablets trembling gave,
Who look'd and read them with a yell
That would disturb the grave.
His eyes with fury shine;
“I thought,” cries he, “his time was out,
“But he must soon be mine!”
Which rent his soul with fear,
He went unto the female fiend,
And whisper'd in her ear.
Than, with reluctant look,
The very ring that Rupert lost,
She from her finger took.
With eyes that breath'd of hell,
She said, in that tremendous voice,
Which he remember'd well:
“The ring thou gav'st to me;
“And thou'rt to me no longer wed,
“Nor longer I to thee.’
He home return'd again;
His wife was then the happiest fair,
The happiest he of men.
TO ------
ON SEEING HER WITH A WHITE VEIL AND A RICH GIRDLE.
Let weeping angels view it;
Your cheeks belie its virgin snow,
And blush repenting through it.
The shining pearls around it
Are tears, that fell from Virtue there,
The hour when Love unbound it.
WRITTEN IN THE BLANK LEAF OF A LADY'S COMMONPLACE BOOK.
Here is one leaf reserv'd for me,From all thy sweet memorials free;
And here my simple song might tell
The feelings thou must guess so well.
But could I thus, within thy mind,
One little vacant corner find,
Where no impression yet is seen,
Where no memorial yet hath been,
Oh! it should be my sweetest care
To write my name for ever there!
TO MRS. BL---.
WRITTEN IN HER ALBUM.
(The urchin likes to copy you),
Where, all who came, the pencil took,
And wrote, like us, a line or two.
Who kept this volume bright and fair,
And saw that no unhallow'd line
Or thought profane should enter there;
With fond device and loving lore,
And every leaf she turn'd was still
More bright than that she turn'd before.
How light the magic pencil ran!
Till Fear would come, alas, as oft,
And trembling close what Hope began.
And Jealousy would, now and then,
Ruffle in haste some snow-white leaf,
Which Love had still to smooth again.
Who often turn'd the pages o'er,
And wrote therein such words of joy,
That all who read them sigh'd for more.
And though so soft his voice and look,
Yet Innocence, whene'er he came,
Would tremble for her spotless book.
With earth's sweet nectar sparkling bright;
And much she fear'd lest, mantling o'er,
Some drops should on the pages light.
The urchin let that goblet fall
O'er the fair book, so pure, so white,
And sullied lines and marge and all!
To wash those fatal stains away;
Deep, deep had sunk the sullying tide,
The leaves grew darker every day.
And Hope's sweet lines were all effac'd,
And Love himself now scarcely knew
What Love himself so lately trac'd.
(For how, alas! could Pleasure stay?)
And Love, while many a tear he shed,
Reluctant flung the book away
Of all the pages spoil'd by Pleasure,
And though it bears some earthy stains,
Yet Memory counts the leaf a treasure.
And oft, by this memorial aided,
Brings back the pages now no more,
And thinks of lines that long have faded.
But thus the simple facts are stated;
And I refer their truth to you,
Since Love and you are near related.
TO CARA, AFTER AN INTERVAL OF ABSENCE.
A mother left her sleeping child,
And flew, to cull her rustic food,
The fruitage of the forest wild.
The mother roams, astray and weeping;
Far from the weak appealing cries
Of him she left so sweetly sleeping.
And gentler blows the night wind's breath;
Yet no—'tis gone—the storms are keen,
The infant may be chill'd to death!
His little eyes lie cold and still;—
And yet, perhaps, they are not clouded,
Life and love may light them still.
When, fearful ev'n thy hand to touch,
I mutely asked those eyes to tell
If parting pain'd thee half so much:
For none was e'er by love inspir'd
Whom fancy had not also taught
To hope the bliss his soul desir'd.
Though yet to that sweet mind unknown,
I left one infant wish behind,
One feeling, which I called my own.
How did I ask of Pity's care,
To shield and strengthen, in thy breast,
The nursling I had cradled there.
And many an hour of sorrow numbering,
I ne'er forgot the new-born treasure,
I left within thy bosom slumbering.
Haply, it yet a throb may give—
Yet, no—perhaps, a doubt has kill'd it;
Say, dearest—does the feeling live?
TO CARA, ON THE DAWNING OF A NEW YEAR'S DAY.
We sigh'd to think it thus should take
The hours it gave us—hours as dear
As sympathy and love could make
Their blessed moments,—every sun
Saw us, my love, more closely one.
Which came a new year's light to shed,
That smile we caught from eye to eye
Told us, those moments were not fled:
Oh, no,—we felt, some future sun
Should see us still more closely one.
From happy years to happier glide;
And still thus may the passing sigh
We give to hours, that vanish o'er us,
Be follow'd by the smiling eye,
That Hope shall shed on scenes before us!
TO ------, 1801.
To be the theme of every hourThe heart devotes to Fancy's power,
When her prompt magic fills the mind
With friends and joys we've left behind,
And joys return and friends are near,
And all are welcom'd with a tear:—
In the mind's purest seat to dwell,
To be remember'd oft and well
By one whose heart, though vain and wild,
By passion led, by youth beguil'd,
Can proudly still aspire to be
All that may yet win smiles from thee:—
If thus to live in every part
Of a lone, weary wanderer's heart;
If thus to be its sole employ
Can give thee one faint gleam of joy,
A tongue that never can deceive,
Though, erring, it too oft betray
Ev'n more than Love should dare to say,—
In Pleasure's dream or Sorrow's hour,
In crowded hall or lonely bower,
The business of my life shall be,
For ever to remember thee.
And though that heart be dead to mine,
Since Love is life and wakes not thine,
I'll take thy image, as the form
Of one whom Love had fail'd to warm,
Which, though it yield no answering thrill,
Is not less dear, is worshipp'd still—
I'll take it, wheresoe'er I stray,
The bright, cold burden of my way.
To keep this semblance fresh in bloom,
My heart shall be its lasting tomb,
And Memory, with embalming care,
Shall keep it fresh and fadeless there.
THE GENIUS OF HARMONY
AN IRREGULAR ODE.
In many a hollow winding wreath'd,
Such as of old
Echoed the breath that warbling sea-maids breath'd;
This magic shell,
From the white bosom of a syren fell,
As once she wander'd by the tide that laves
Sicilia's sands of gold.
It bears
Upon its shining side the mystic notes
Of those entrancing airs ,
When heaven's eternal orbs their midnight music roll'd!
Oh! seek it, wheresoe'er it floats;
And, if the power
Of thrilling numbers to thy soul be dear,
Go, bring the bright shell to my bower,
And I will fold thee in such downy dreams
As lap the Spirit of the Seventh Sphere,
When Luna's distant tone falls faintly on his ear!
That, through the circle of creation's zone,
Where matter slumbers or where spirit beams;
From the pellucid tides , that whirl
The planets through their maze of song,
To the small rill, that weeps along
Murmuring o'er beds of pearl;
From the rich sigh
Of the sun's arrow through an evening sky ,
On Afric's burning fields ;
Thou'lt wondering own this universe divine
Is mine!
That I respire in all and all in me,
One mighty mingled soul of boundless harmony
Many a star has ceas'd to burn ,
Many a tear has Saturn's urn
O'er the cold bosom of the ocean wept ,
Hath in the waters slept.
Now blest I'll fly
With the bright treasure to my choral sky,
Where she, who wak'd its early swell,
The Syren of the heavenly choir,
Walks o'er the great string of my Orphic Lyre ;
Or guides around the burning pole
The winged chariot of some blissful soul :
While thou—
Oh son of earth, what dreams shall rise for thee!
Beneath Hispania's sun,
Thou'lt see a streamlet run,
Which I've imbued with breathing melody ;
Thou'lt hear how like a harp its waters sigh:
A liquid chord is every wave that flows,
An airy plectrum every breeze that blows.
Go, lay thy languid brow,
And I will send thee such a godlike dream,
As never bless'd the slumbers even of him ,
Who, many a night, with his primordial lyre ,
Sate on the chill Pangæan mount ,
Watch'd the first flowing of that sacred fount,
From which his soul had drunk its fire.
Oh! think what visions, in that lonely hour,
Stole o'er his musing breast;
What pious ecstasy
Wafted his prayer to that eternal Power,
Whose seal upon this new-born world imprest
The various forms of bright divinity!
'Mid the deep horror of that silent bower ,
Where the rapt Samian slept his holy slumber?
When, free
From every earthly chain,
From wreaths of pleasure and from bonds of pain,
His spirit flew through fields above,
Drank at the source of nature's fontal number ,
And saw, in mystic choir, around him move
The stars of song, Heaven's burning minstrelsy!
Such dreams, so heavenly bright,
I swear
By the great diadem that twines my hair,
And by the seven gems that sparkle there ,
In a soft iris of harmonious light,
Oh, mortal! such shall be thy radiant dreams.
In the “Histoire Naturelle des Antilles,” there is an account of some curious shells, found at Curaçoa, on the back of which were lines, filled with musical characters so distinct and perfect, that the writer assures us a very charming trio was sung from one of them. “On le nomme musical, parcequ'il porte sur le dos des lignes noirâtres pleines de notes, qui ont une espèce de clé pour les mettre en chant, de sorte que l'on diroit qu'il ne manque que la lettre à cette tablature naturelle. Ce curieux gentilhomme (M. du Montel) rapporte qu'il en a vû qui avoient cinq lignes, une clé, et des notes, qui formoient un accord parfait. Quelqu'un y avoit ajouté la lettre, que la nature avoit oubliée, et la faisoit chanter en forme de trio, dont l'air étoit fort agréable.”—Chap. xix. art. 11. The author adds, a poet might imagine that these shells were used by the syrens at their concerts.
According to Cicero, and his commentator, Macrobius, the lunar tone is the gravest and faintest on the planetary heptachord. “Quam ob causam summus ille cœli stellifer cursus, cujus conversio est concitatior, acuto et excitato movetur sono; gravissimo autem hic lunaris atque infimus.”—Somn. Scip. Because, says Macrobius, “spiritu ut in extremitate languescente jam volvitur, et propter angustias quibus penultimus orbis arctatur impetu leniore convertitur.”—In Somn. Scip. lib. ii. cap. 4. In their musical arrangement of the heavenly bodies, the ancient writers are not very intelligible. —See Ptolem. lib. iii.
Leone Hebreo, pursuing the idea of Aristotle, that the heavens are animal, attributes their harmony to perfect and reciprocal love. “Non pero manca fra loro il perfetto et reciproco amore: la causa principale, che ne mostra il loro amore, è la lor amicitia armonica et la concordanza, che perpetuamente si trova in loro.”—Dialog. ii. di Amore, p. 58. This “reciproco amore” of Leone is the φιλοτης of the ancient Empedocles, who seems, in his Love and Hate of the Elements, to have given a glimpse of the principles of attraction and repulsion. See the fragment to which I allude in Laertius, Αλλοτε μεν φιλοτητι, συνερχομεν', κ. τ. λ., lib. viii. cap. 2. n. 12.
Leucippus, the atomist, imagined a kind of vortices in the heavens, which he borrowed from Anaxagoras, and possibly suggested to Descartes.
Heraclides, upon the allegories of Homer, conjectures that the idea of the harmony of the spheres originated with this poet, who, in representing the solar beams as arrows, supposes them to emit a peculiar sound in the air.
In the account of Africa which D'Ablancourt has translated, there is mention of a tree in that country, whose branches when shaken by the hand produce very sweet sounds. “Le même auteur (Abenzégar) dit, qu'il y a un certain arbre, qui produit des gaules comme d'osier, et qu'en les prenant à la main et les branlant, elles font une espèce d'harmonie fort agréable,” &c. &c. —L' Afrique de Marmol.
Alluding to the extinction, or at least the disappearance, of some of those fixed stars, which we are taught to consider as suns, attended each by its system. Descartes thought that our earth might formerly have been a sun, which became obscured by a thick incrustation over its surface. This probably suggested the idea of a central fire.
Porphyry says, that Pythagoras held the sea to be a tear, Την θαλατταν μεν εκαλει ειναι δακρυον (De Vitâ); and some one else, if I mistake not, has added the planet Saturn as the source of it. Empedocles, with similar affectation, called the sea “the sweat of the earth:” ιδρωτα της γης See Rittershusius upon Porphyry, Num. 41.
The system of the harmonized orbs was styled by the ancients the Great Lyre of Orpheus, for which Lucian thus accounts: —η δε Λυρη επταμιτος εουσα την των κινουμενων αστρων αρμονιαν συνεβαλλετο. κ. τ. λ.. in Astrolog.
Διειλε ψυχας ισαριθμους τοις αστροις, ενειμε θ' εκαστην προς εκαστον, και εμβιβασας ΩΣ ΕΙΣ ΟΧΗΜΑ—“Distributing the souls severally among the stars, and mounting each soul upon a star as on its chariot.” —Plato, Timœus.
This musical river is mentioned in the romance of Achilles Tatius. Επει ποταμον .. ην δε ακουσι θελης του υδατος λαλουντος. The Latin version, in supplying the hiatus which is in the original, has placed the river in Hispania. “In Hispaniâ quoque fluvius est, quem primo aspectu,” &c. &c.
These two lines are translated from the words of Achilles Tatius. Εαν γαρ ολιγος ανεμος εις τας δινας εμπεση, το μεν υδωρ ως χορδη κρουεται. το δε πνευμα του υδατος πληκτρον γινεται. το ρευμα δε ως κιθαρα λαλει. —Lib. ii.
They called his lyre αρχαιοτροπον επταχορδον Ορφεως. See a curious work by a professor of Greek at Venice, entitled “Hebdomades, sive septem de septenario libri.” —Lib. iv. cap. 3. p. 177.
Eratosthenes, in mentioning the extreme veneration of Orpheus for Apollo, says that he was accustomed to go to the Pangæan mountain at day-break, and there wait the rising of the sun, that he might be the first to hail its beams. Επεγειρομενος τε της νυκτος, κατα την εωθινην επι το ορος το καλουμενον Παγγαιον, προσεμενε τας ανατολας, ινα ιδη τον Ηλιον πρωτον. —Καταστερισμ.. 24.
There are some verses of Orpheus preserved to us, which contain sublime ideas of the unity and magnificence of the Deity. For instance, those which Justin Martyr has produced:
Χρυσειω ενι θρονω, κ. τ. λ.
Ad Græc. Cohortat.
It is thought by some, that these are to be reckoned amongst the fabrications, which were frequent in the early times of Christianity. Still, it appears doubtful to whom they are to be attributed, being too pious for the Pagans, and too poetical for the Fathers.
In one of the Hymns of Orpheus, he attributes a figured seal to Apollo, with which he imagines that deity to have stamped a variety of forms upon the universe.
Alluding to the cave near Samos, where Pythagoras devoted the greater part of his days and nights to meditation and the mysteries of his philosophy. Iamblich. de Vit. This, as Holstenius remarks, was in imitation of the Magi.
The tetractys, or sacred number of the Pythagoreans, on which they solemnly swore, and which they called παγαν αεναου φυσεως, “the fountain of perennial nature.” Lucian has ridiculed this religious arithmetic very cleverly in his Sale of Philosophers.
This diadem is intended to represent the analogy between the notes of music and the prismatic colours. We find in Plutarch a vague intimation of this kindred harmony in colours and sounds.—Οψις τε και ακοη, μετα φωνης τε και φωτος την αρμονιαν επιφαινουσι. —De Musica.
Cassiodorus, whose idea I may be supposed to have borrowed, says, in a letter upon music to Boetius, “Ut diadema oculis, varia luce gemmarum, sic cythara diversitate soni, blanditur auditui.” This is indeed the only tolerable thought in the letter. —Lib. ii. Variar.
[I found her not—the chamber seem'd]
Like some divinely haunted place,
Where fairy forms had lately beam'd,
And left behind their odorous trace!
A sigh around her, ere she fled,
Which hung, as on a melting lute,
When all the silver chords are mute,
There lingers still a trembling breath
After the note's luxurious death,
A shade of song, a spirit air
Of melodies which had been there.
Had floated o'er her cheek of rose;
I saw the couch, where late she lay
In languor of divine repose;
Her limbs had left, as pure and warm,
As if 'twere done in rapture's mint,
And Love himself had stamp'd the form.
In pity fly not thus from me;
Thou art my life, my essence now,
And my soul dies of wanting thee.
TO MRS. HENRY TIGHE,
ON READING HER “PSYCHE.”
For never has my heart or ear
Hung on so sweet, so pure a strain,
So pure to feel, so sweet to hear.
When the high heaven itself was thine;
When piety confess'd the flame,
And even thy errors were divine;
A glory round thy temples spread?
Did ever lip's ambrosial air
Such fragrance o'er thy altars shed?
The mystic myrtle wildly wreath'd;—
But all her sighs were sighs of fire,
The myrtle wither'd as she breath'd.
In all its purity, would know,
Let not the senses' ardent beam
Too strongly through the vision glow.
The night where heaven has bid him lie;
Oh! shed not there unhallow'd light,
Or, Psyche knows, the boy will fly.
Through many a wild and magic waste,
To the fair fount and blissful bower
Have I, in dreams, thy light foot trac'd!
Beneath whatever shades of rest,
The Genius of the starry brow
Hath bound thee to thy Cupid's breast;
Along whose verge our spirits stray,—
Half brighten'd by the upper ray ,—
Or, lingering here, dost love to be,
To other souls, the guardian bright
That Love was, through this gloom, to thee;
The song, whose gentle voice was given
To be, on earth, to mortal ear,
An echo of her own, in heaven.
See the story in Apuleius. With respect to this beautiful allegory of Love and Psyche, there is an ingenious idea suggested by the senator Buonarotti, in his “Osservazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi antici.” He thinks the fable is taken from some very occult mysteries, which had long been celebrated in honour of Love; and accounts, upon this supposition, for the silence of the more ancient authors upon the subject, as it was not till towards the decline of pagan superstition, that writers could venture to reveal or discuss such ceremonies. Accordingly, observes this author, we find Lucian and Plutarch treating, without reserve, of the Dea Syria, as well as of Isis and Osiris; and Apuleius, to whom we are indebted for the beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche,. has also detailed some of the mysteries of Isis. See the Giornale di Litterati d'Italia, tom. xxvii. articol. 1. See also the observations upon the ancient gems in the Museum Florentinum, vol. i. p. 156.
I cannot avoid remarking here an error into which the French Encyclopédistes have been led by M. Spon, in their article Psyche. They say “Petrone fait un récit de la pompe nuptiale de ces deux amans (Amour et Psyche). Déjà, dit-il,” &c. &c. The Psyche of Petronius, however, is a servant-maid, and the marriage which he describes is that of the young Pannychis. See Spon's Recherches curieuses, &c. Dissertat. 5.
By this image the Platonists expressed the middle state of the soul between sensible and intellectual existence.
FROM THE HIGH PRIEST OF APOLLO TO A VIRGIN OF DELPHI.
“With eye of fire, and foot of air,
“Whose harp around my altar swells,
“The sweetest of a thousand shells?”
The arch of heaven, and proudly sheds
Day from his eyelids—thus he spoke,
As through my cell his glories broke.
With eyes of fire and golden hair,
Aphelia's are the airy feet,
And hers the harp divinely sweet;
For foot so light has never trod
The laurel'd caverns of the god,
Nor harp so soft hath ever given
A sigh to earth or hymn to heaven.
“In looser pomp, her locks of gold,
“To welcome down a Spouse Divine;
“Since He, who lights the path of years—
“Even from the fount of morning's tears
“To where his setting splendours burn
“Upon the western sea-maid's urn—
“Doth not, in all his course, behold
“Such eyes of fire, such hair of gold.
“Tell her, he comes, in blissful pride,
“His lip yet sparkling with the tide
“That mantles in Olympian bowls,—
“The nectar of eternal souls!
“For her, for her he quits the skies,
“And to her kiss from nectar flies.
“Oh, he would quit his star-thron'd height.
“And leave the world to pine for light,
“Might he but pass the hours of shade,
“Beside his peerless Delphic maid,
“She, more than earthly woman blest,
“He, more than god on woman's breast!”
Where living rills of crystal weep
That ever spring begemm'd with dew:
There oft the greensward's glossy tint
Is brighten'd by the recent print
Of many a faun and naiad's feet,—
Scarce touching earth, their step so fleet,—
That there, by moonlight's ray, had trod,
In light dance, o'er the verdant sod.
“There, there,” the god, impassion'd, said,
“Soon as the twilight tinge is fled,
“And the dim orb of lunar souls
“Along its shadowy pathway rolls—
“There shall we meet,—and not ev'n He,
“The God who reigns immortally,
“Where Babel's turrets paint their pride
“Upon th' Euphrates' shining tide ,—
“In mystic majesty he moves,
“Lighted by many an odorous fire,
“And hymn'd by all Chaldæa's choir,—
“E'er yet, o'er mortal brow, let shine
“Such effluence of Love Divine,
“As shall to-night, blest maid, o'er thine.”
To break for heaven her virgin vows!
Happy the maid!—her robe of shame
Is whiten'd by a heavenly flame,
Whose glory, with a lingering trace,
Shines through and deifies her race!
This poem, as well as a few others in the following volume, formed part of a work which I had early projected, and even announced to the public, but which, luckily, perhaps, for myself, had been interrupted by my visit to America in the year 1803.
Among those impostures in which the priests of the pagan temples are known to have indulged, one of the most favourite was that of announcing to some fair votary of the shrine, that the God himself had become enamoured of her beauty, and would descend in all his glory, to pay her a visit within the recesses of the fane. An adventure of this description formed an episode in the classic romance which I had sketched out; and the short fragment, given above, belongs to an epistle by which the story was to have been introduced.
In the 9th Pythic of Pindar, where Apollo, in the same manner, requires of Chiron some information respecting the fair Cyrene, the Centaur, in obeying, very gravely apologizes for telling the God what his omniscience must know so perfectly already:
Ερεω:
The Corycian Cave, which Pausanias mentions. The inhabitants of Parnassus held it sacred to the Corycian nymphs, who were children of the river Plistus.
See a preceding note, Vol. I. p. 127. It should seem that lunar spirits were of a purer order than spirits in general, as Pythagoras was said by his followers to have descended from the regions of the moon. The heresiarch Manes, in the same manner, imagined that the sun and moon are the residence of Christ, and that the ascension was nothing more than his flight to those orbs.
The temple of Jupiter Belus, at Babylon; in one of whose towers there was a large chapel set apart for these celestial assignations. “No man is allowed to sleep here,” says Herodotus; “but the apartment is appropriated to a female, whom, if we believe the Chaldæan priests, the deity selects from the women of the country, as his favourite.” Lib. i. cap. 181.
Fontenelle, in his playful rifacimento of the learned materials of Van-Dale, has related in his own inimitable manner an adventure of this kind which was detected and exposed at Alexandria. See L'Histoire des Oracles, dissert. 2. chap. vii. Crebillon, too, in one of his most amusing little stories, has made the Génie Mange-Taupes, of the Isle Jonquille, assert this privilege of spiritual beings in a manner rather formidable to the husbands of the island.
FRAGMENT.
[Pity me, love! I'll pity thee]
Pity me, love! I'll pity thee,If thou indeed has felt like me.
All, all my bosom's peace is o'er!
At night, which was my hour of calm,
When from the page of classic lore,
From the pure fount of ancient lay
My soul has drawn the placid balm,
Which charm'd its every grief away,
Ah! there I find that balm no more.
Those spells, which make us oft forget
The fleeting troubles of the day,
In deeper sorrows only whet
The stings they cannot tear away.
When to my pillow rack'd I fly,
With wearied sense and wakeful eye.
While my brain maddens, where, oh, where
Is that serene consoling pray'r,
Which once has harbinger'd my rest,
When the still soothing voice of Heaven
“Sleep on, thy errors are forgiven!”
No, though I still in semblance pray,
My thoughts are wandering far away
And ev'n the name of Deity
Is murmur'd out in sighs for thee.
A NIGHT THOUGHT.
Obscures yon bashful light,
Which seems so modestly to steal
Along the waste of night!
Obscure with malice keen
Some timid heart, which only longs
To live and die unseen.
THE KISS.
Grow to my lip, thou sacred kiss,On which my soul's beloved swore
That there should come a time of bliss,
When she would mock my hopes no more.
And fancy shall thy glow renew,
In sighs at morn, and dreams at night,
And none shall steal thy holy dew
Till thou'rt absolv'd by rapture's rite.
Sweet hours that are to make me blest,
Fly, swift as breezes, to the goal,
And let my love, my more than soul
Come blushing to this ardent breast.
Then, while in every glance I drink
The rich o'erflowings of her mind,
Oh! let her all enamour'd sink
In sweet abandonment resign'd,
Blushing for all our struggles past,
And murmuring, “I am thine at last!”
SONG.
[Think on that look whose melting ray]
For one sweet moment mix'd with mine,
And for that moment seem'd to say,
“I dare not, or I would be thine!”
On all thou hast to charm and move;
And then forgive my bosom's trance,
Nor tell me it is sin to love.
For sure, if Fate's decrees be done,
Thou, thou art destin'd still to win,
As I am destin'd to be won!
THE CATALOGUE.
One day she reclin'd on my breast;
“Come, tell me the number, repeat me the list
“Of the nymphs you have lov'd and carest.”—
Oh Rosa! 'twas only my fancy that roved,
My heart at the moment was free;
But I'll tell thee, my girl, how many I've loved,
And the number shall finish with thee.
She taught me the way to be blest;
She taught me to love her, I lov'd like a child,
But Kitty could fancy the rest.
This lesson of dear and enrapturing lore
I have never forgot, I allow:
I have had it by rote very often before,
But never by heart until now.
But my head was so full of romance
That I fancied her into some chivalry dame,
And I was her knight of the lance.
But Martha was not of this fanciful school,
And she laugh'd at her poor little knight;
While I thought her a goddess, she thought me a fool,
And I'll swear she was most in the right.
Again I was tempted to rove;
But Cloris, I found, was so learned in books
That she gave me more logic than love.
So I left this young Sappho, and hasten'd to fly
To those sweeter logicians in bliss,
Who argue the point with a soul-telling eye,
And convince us at once with a kiss.
But Susan was piously given;
And the worst of it was, we could never agree
On the road that was shortest to Heaven.
“What's devotion to thee or to me?
“I devoutly believe there's a heaven on earth,
“And believe that that heaven's in thee!”
IMITATION OF CATULLUS.
TO HIMSELF.
Cease to trifle life away;
Nor vainly think those joys thine own,
Which all, alas, have falsely flown.
What hours, Catullus, once were thine,
How fairly seem'd thy day to shine,
When lightly thou didst fly to meet
The girl whose smile was then so sweet—
The girl thou lov'dst with fonder pain
Than e'er thy heart can feel again.
Like tapers that commingling shone;
Thy heart was warm enough for both,
And hers, in truth, was nothing loath.
But, ah! those hours no longer shine.
For now the nymph delights no more
In what she lov'd so much before;
And all Catullus now can do,
Is to be proud and frigid too;
Nor follow where the wanton flies,
Nor sue the bliss that she denies.
False maid! he bids farewell to thee,
To love, and all love's misery;
The heyday of his heart is o'er,
Nor will he court one favour more.
Who now will praise thy cheek and eye?
Who now will drink the syren tone,
Which tells him thou art all his own?
Oh, none:—and he who lov'd before
Can never, never love thee more.
[Oh woman, if through sinful wile]
Thy soul hath stray'd from honour's track,
'Tis mercy only can beguile,
By gentle ways, the wanderer back.
Wash'd by those tears, not long will stay;
As clouds that sully morning skies
May all be wept in show'rs away.
The tongues of men may wound thee sore;
But Heav'n in pity can forgive,
And bids thee “go, and sin no more!”
NONSENSE.
Good reader! if you e'er have seen,When Phœbus hastens to his pillow,
The mermaids, with their tresses green,
Dancing upon the western billow:
If you have seen, at twilight dim,
When the lone spirit's vesper hymn
Floats wild along the winding shore,
If you have seen, through mist of eve,
The fairy train their ringlets weave,
Glancing along the spangled green:—
If you have seen all this, and more,
God bless me, what a deal you've seen!
EPIGRAM, FROM THE FRENCH.
“I never give a kiss (says Prue),“To naughty man, for I abhor it.”
She will not give a kiss, 'tis true;
She'll take one though, and thank you for it.
ON A SQUINTING POETESS.
To no one Muse does she her glance confine.But has an eye, at once, to all the Nine!
TO ------
[Die when you will, you need not wear]
Die when you will, you need not wear
At Heaven's Court a form more fair
Than Beauty here on earth has given;
Keep but the lovely looks we see—
The voice we hear—and you will be
An angel ready-made for Heaven!
TO ROSA.
Seducing all, and loving none;
And have I strove to gain a heart
Which every coxcomb thinks his own?
And I will calm my jealous breast;
Will learn to join the dangling crew,
And share your simpers with the rest.
Oh! if another share that heart,
Tell not the hateful tale to me,
But mingle mercy with your art.
Than find you to be all divine,—
Than know that heart could love so well,
Yet know that heart would not be mine!
TO PHILLIS.
Phillis, you little rosy rake,That heart of yours I long to rifle:
Come, give it me, and do not make
So much ado about a trifle!
TO A LADY, ON HER SINGING.
Those soothing thoughts of heav'nly love,
Which o'er the sainted spirits steal
When list'ning to the spheres above!
I wish to sigh my latest breath,
Oh, Emma! I will fly to thee,
And thou shalt sing me into death.
That smile of heav'nly softness play,
Which,—ah! forgive a mind that's weak,—
So oft has stol'n my mind away;
That comes to charm me into bliss:
I'll gaze and die—Who would not die,
If death were half so sweet as this?
ON THE BIRTHDAY OF MRS. ---
SONG.
And even I have had my measure,
When hearts were full, and ev'ry eye
Hath kindled with the light of pleasure,
An hour like this I ne'er was given,
So full of friendship's purest blisses;
Young Love himself looks down from heaven,
To smile on such a day as this is.
Let's feel as if we ne'er could sever;
And may the birth of her we love
Be thus with joy remember'd ever!
Which could disturb our soul's communion;
Abandon'd thus to dear delight,
We'll ev'n for once forget the Union!
On that let statesmen try their pow'rs,
And tremble o'er the rights they'd die for;
The union of the soul be ours,
And ev'ry union else we sigh for.
The feelings of the heart o'erflowing;
From ev'ry soul I catch the spark
Of sympathy, in friendship glowing.
Oh! could such moments ever fly;
Oh! that we ne'er were doom'd to lose 'em;
And all as bright as Charlotte's eye,
And all as pure as Charlotte's bosom.
Whatever sun may light my roving;
Whether I waste my life in tears,
Or live, as now, for mirth and loving;
Wherever fate may cast your rover;
He'll think of those he left behind,
And drink a health to bliss that's over!
SONG.
[Mary, I believ'd thee true]
And I was blest in thus believing;
But know I mourn that e'er I knew
A girl so fair and so deceiving.
Fare thee well.
Yes, I have lov'd thee too sincerely!
And few have e'er deceiv'd like thee,—
Alas! deceiv'd me too severely.
On one whose bosom bleeds to doubt thee;
Who now would rather trust that smile,
And die with thee than live without thee.
Thou leav'st me many a bitter token;
For see, distracting woman, see,
My peace is gone, my heart is broken!—
Fare thee well!
MORALITY.
A FAMILIAR EPISTLE. ADDRESSED TO J. AT---NS*N, ESQ. M.R.I.A.
O'er books of verse and books of prosing,
And copying from their moral pages
Fine recipes for making sages;
Though long with those divines at school,
Who think to make us good by rule;
Who, in methodic forms advancing,
Teaching morality like dancing,
Tell us, for Heav'n or money's sake,
What steps we are through life to take:
Though thus, my friend, so long employ'd,
With so much midnight oil destroy'd,
I must confess, my searches past,
I've only learn'd to doubt at last.
Have differ'd in all climes and ages,
And two in fifty scarce agree
On what is pure morality.
'Tis like the rainbow's shifting zone,
And every vision makes its own.
As modes of being great and wise,
That we should cease to own or know
The luxuries that from feeling flow:—
“Reason alone must claim direction,
“And Apathy's the soul's perfection.
“Like a dull lake the heart must lie;
“Nor passion's gale nor pleasure's sigh,
“Though Heav'n the breeze, the breath, supplied,
“Must curl the wave or swell the tide!”
To form his philosophic man;
Such were the modes he taught mankind
To weed the garden of the mind;
They tore from thence some weeds, 'tis true,
But all the flow'rs were ravaged too!
Which, on Cyrené's sandy plains,
When Pleasure, nymph with loosen'd zone,
Usurp'd the philosophic throne,—
Hear what the courtly sage's tongue
To his surrounding pupils sung:—
“Pleasure's the only noble end
“To which all human pow'rs should tend,
“And Virtue gives her heav'nly lore,
“But to make Pleasure please us more.
“Wisdom and she were both design'd
“To make the senses more refin'd,
“That man might revel, free from cloying,
“Then most a sage when most enjoying!”
Ev'n I a wiser path could show.
The flow'r within this vase confin'd,
The pure, the unfading flow'r of mind,
Must not throw all its sweets away
Upon a mortal mould of clay:
No, no,—its richest breath should rise
In virtue's incense to the skies.
Have watchwords of morality:
Some cry out Venus, others Jove;
Here 'tis Religion, there 'tis Love.
But while they thus so widely wander,
While mystics dream, and doctors ponder;
And some, in dialectics firm,
Seek virtue in a middle term;
While thus they strive, in Heaven's defiance,
To chain morality with science;
The plain good man, whose actions teach
More virtue than a sect can preach,
Pursues his course, unsagely blest,
His tutor whisp'ring in his breast;
Nor could he act a purer part,
Though he had Tully all by heart.
And when he drops the tear on woe,
He little knows or cares to know
That Epictetus blam'd that tear,
By Heav'n approv'd, to virtue dear!
Floating within the dimpled stream;
Has just put on her robes of light,
Have I, with cold optician's gaze,
Explor'd the doctrine of those rays?
No, pedants, I have left to you
Nicely to sep'rate hue from hue.
Go, give that moment up to art,
When Heav'n and nature claim the heart;
And, dull to all their best attraction,
Go—measure angles of refraction.
While I, in feeling's sweet romance,
Look on each daybeam as a glance
From the great eye of Him above,
Wak'ning his world with looks of love!
THE TELL-TALE LYRE.
A Lyre of most melodious spell;
'Twas heav'n to hear its fairy lays,
If half be true that legends tell.
And to their breath it breath'd again
In such entrancing melodies
As ear had never drunk till then!
So stilly could the notes prolong;
They were not heavenly song so much
As they were dreams of heav'nly song!
Along the chords in languor stole,
The numbers it awaken'd there
Were eloquence from pity's soul.
Was but the breath of fancied woes,
The string, that felt its airy flight,
Soon whisper'd it to kind repose.
If, mid their bliss that Lyre was near,
It made their accents all its own,
And sent forth notes that heav'n might hear.
But dar'd not tell the world how well:
The shades, where she at evening rov'd,
Alone could know, alone could tell.
When the first star announc'd the night,—
With him who claim'd her inmost soul,
To wander by that soothing light.
Where blest they wooed each other's smile,
This Lyre, of strange and magic power.
Hung whisp'ring o'er their heads the while.
They listen'd to each other's vow,
The youth full oft would make the Lyre
A pillow for the maiden's brow:
Were by its echoes wafted round,
Her locks had with the chords so wreath'd,
One knew not which gave forth the sound.
While thus they talk'd the hours away,
That every sound the Lyre was taught
Would linger long, and long betray.
Were all their tender murmurs grown,
That other sighs unanswer'd stole,
Nor words it breath'd but theirs alone.
To every breeze that wander'd by;
The secrets of thy gentle tongue
Were breath'd in song to earth and sky.
Hung high amid the whisp'ring groves,
To every gale by which 'twas fann'd,
Proclaimed the mystery of your loves.
To earth's derisive echoes given;
Some pitying spirit downward came,
And took the Lyre and thee to heaven.
Both happy in Love's home shall be;
Thou, uttering nought but seraph songs,
And that sweet Lyre still echoing thee!
PEACE AND GLORY.
WRITTEN ON THE APPROACH OF WAR.
Every hero's couch of rest?
Where is now the hope, that brighten'd
Honour's eye and Pity's breast?
Have we lost the wreath we braided
For our weary warrior men?
Is the faithless olive faded?
Must the bay be pluck'd again?
Lovely, in your light awhile,
Peace and Glory, wed together,
Wander'd through our blessed isle.
And the eyes of Peace would glisten,
Dewy as a morning sun,
When the timid maid would listen
To the deeds her chief had done.
Must the maiden's trembling feet
Waft her from her warlike lover
To the desert's still retreat?
Fare you well! with sighs we banish
Nymph so fair and guests so bright;
Yet the smile, with which you vanish,
Leaves behind a soothing light;—
O'er your warrior's sanguin'd way,
Through the field where horrors darkle,
Shedding hope's consoling ray.
Long the smile his heart will cherish,
To its absent idol true;
While around him myriads perish,
Glory still will sigh for you!
SONG.
[Take back the sigh, thy lips of art]
In passion's moment breath'd to me;
Yet, no—it must not, will not part,
'Tis now the life-breath of my heart,
And has become too pure for thee.
With all the warmth of truth imprest
Yet, no—the fatal kiss may lie,
Upon thy lip its sweets would die,
Or bloom to make a rival blest.
My heart receiv'd, I thought, from thine;
Yet, no—allow them still to stay,
They might some other heart betray,
As sweetly as they've ruin'd mine.
LOVE AND REASON.
When hearts and flowers are both in season,
That—who, of all the world, should meet,
One early dawn, but Love and Reason!
While Reason talked about the weather;
The morn, in sooth, was fair and bright,
And on they took their way together.
While Reason, like a Juno, stalk'd,
And from her portly figure threw
A lengthen'd shadow, as she walk'd.
Should find that sunny morning chill,
For still the shadow Reason cast
Fell o'er the boy, and cool'd him still.
Or find a pathway not so dim,
For still the maid's gigantic form
Would stalk between the sun and him.
“The sun was made for more than you.”
So, turning through a myrtle grove,
He bid the portly nymph adieu.
O'er many a mead, by many a stream;
In every breeze inhaling joy,
And drinking bliss in every beam.
He cull'd the many sweets they shaded,
And ate the fruits and smell'd the flowers,
Till taste was gone and odour faded.
Look'd blazing o'er the sultry plains;
Alas! the boy grew languid soon,
And fever thrill'd through all his veins.
No more with healthy bloom he smil'd—
Oh! where was tranquil Reason now,
To cast her shadow o'er the child?
His foot at length for shelter turning,
He saw the nymph reclining calm,
With brow as cool as his was burning.
In murmurs at her feet he said;
And Reason op'd her garment's fold,
And flung it round his fever'd head.
And soon it lull'd his pulse to rest;
For, ah! the chill was quite too much,
And Love expir'd on Reason's breast!
[Nay, do not weep, my Fanny dear]
While in these arms you lie,
This world hath not a wish, a fear,
That ought to cost that eye a tear,
That heart, one single sigh.
The paths where many rove;
One bosom to recline upon,
One heart to be his only-one,
Are quite enough for Love.
Between your arms and mine?
Is there, on earth, a space so dear
As that within the happy sphere
Two loving arms entwine?
Adown your temples curl'd,
Within whose glossy, tangling net,
My soul doth not, at once, forget
All, all this worthless world.
My only worlds I see;
Let but their orbs in sunshine move,
And earth below and skies above
May frown or smile for me.
ASPASIA.
That Love and Learning, many an hour,
In dalliance met; and Learning smil'd
With pleasure on the playful child,
Who often stole, to find a nest
Within the folds of Learning's vest.
In transport on Aspasia's tongue,
The destinies of Athens took
Their colour from Aspasia's look.
Oh happy time, when laws of state
When all that rul'd the country's fate,
Its glory, quiet, or alarms,
Was plann'd between two snow-white arms!
And yet, ev'n now, they are not past.
In which their men were cast of old,
Woman, dear woman, still the same,
While beauty breathes through soul or frame,
While man possesses heart or eyes,
Woman's bright empire never dies!
That beauty's charm hath pass'd away;
Give but the universe a soul
Attun'd to woman's soft control,
And Fanny hath the charm, the skill.
To wield a universe at will.
THE GRECIAN GIRL'S DREAM OF THE BLESSED ISLANDS.
TO HER LOVER.
Πυθαγορης, οσσοι τε χορον στηριξαν ερωτος.
Απολλων περι Πλωτινου.
Oracul. Metric. a Joan. Opsop. collecta.
That call'd thee, dearest, from these arms away?
Scarce had'st thou left me, when a dream of night
Came o'er my spirit so distinct and bright,
Its witching wonders, thou shalt hear them all.
Methought I saw, upon the lunar beam,
Two winged boys, such as thy muse might dream,
Descending from above, at that still hour,
And gliding, with smooth step, into my bower.
Fair as the beauteous spirits that, all day,
In Amatha's warm founts imprison'd stay ,
But rise at midnight, from th' enchanted rill,
To cool their plumes upon some moonlight hill.
My spirit upward, through the paths of air,
To that elysian realm, from whence stray beams
So oft, in sleep, had visited my dreams.
All earthly round me, and aloft I sprung;
While, heav'nward guides, the little genii flew
Thro' paths of light, refresh'd by heaven's own dew,
And fann'd by airs still fragrant with the breath
Of cloudless climes and worlds that know not death.
And shown but dimly to man's erring eye,
A mighty ocean of blue ether rolls ,
Gemm'd with bright islands, where the chosen souls,
Who've pass'd in lore and love their earthly hours,
Repose for ever in unfading bowers.
So often guides thee to my bower at night,
Is no chill planet, but an isle of love,
Floating in splendour through those seas above,
And peopled with bright forms, aërial grown,
Nor knowing aught of earth but love alone.
Thither, I thought, we wing'd our airy way:—
Mild o'er its valleys stream'd a silvery day,
While, all around, on lily beds of rest,
Reclin'd the spirits of the immortal Blest.
Oh! there I met those few congenial maids,
Whom love hath warm'd, in philosophic shades;
There still Leontium , on her sage's breast,
Found lore and love, was tutor'd and carest;
Repaid the zeal which deified her charms.
The Attic Master , in Aspasia's eyes,
Forgot the yoke of less endearing ties;
Wreath'd playfully her Samian's flowing hair ,
Whose soul now fix'd, its transmigrations past,
Found in those arms a resting-place, at last;
And smiling own'd, whate'er his dreamy thought
In mystic numbers long had vainly sought,
The One that's form'd of Two whom love hath bound,
Is the best number gods or men e'er found.
When near a fount, which through the valley rill'd,
My fancy's eye beheld a form recline,
Of lunar race, but so resembling thine
To fly, to clasp, and worship it for thee.
No aid of words the unbodied soul requires,
To waft a wish or embassy desires;
But by a power, to spirits only given,
A deep, mute impulse, only felt in heaven,
Swifter than meteor shaft through summer skies,
From soul to soul the glanc'd idea flies.
Is the pure joy, when kindred spirits meet!
Like him, the river-god , whose waters flow,
With love their only light, through caves below,
Wafting in triumph all the flowery braids,
And festal rings, with which Olympic maids
Have deck'd his current, as an offering meet
To lay at Arethusa's shining feet.
What perfect love must thrill the blended tide!
Each lost in each, till, mingling into one,
Their lot the same for shadow or for sun,
A type of true love, to the deep they run.
'Twas thus—
And thou grow'st weary of my half-told dream.
Oh would, my love, we were together now,
And I would woo sweet patience to thy brow,
And make thee smile at all the magic tales
Of starlight bowers and planetary vales,
Which my fond soul, inspir'd by thee and love,
In slumber's loom hath fancifully wove.
But no; no more—soon as to-morrow's ray
O'er soft Ilissus shall have died away,
I'll come, and, while love's planet in the west
Shines o'er our meeting, tell thee all the rest.
It was imagined by some of the ancients that there is an ethereal ocean above us, and that the sun and moon are two floating, luminous islands, in which the spirits of the blest reside. Accordingly we find that the word Ωκεανος, was sometimes synonymous with αηρ, and death was not unfrequently called Ωκεανοιο πορος, or “the passage of the ocean.”
Eunapius, in his life of Iamblichus, tells us of two beautiful little spirits or loves, which Iamblichus raised by enchantment from the warm springs at Gadara; “dicens astantibus (says the author of the Dii Fatidici, p. 160.) illos esse loci Genios:” which words, however, are not in Eunapius.
I find from Cellarius, that Amatha, in the neighbourhood of Gadara, was also celebrated for its warm springs, and I have preferred it as a more poetical name than Gadara. Cellarius quotes Hieronymus. “Est et alia villa in vicinia Gadaræ nomine Amatha, ubi calidæ aquæ erumpunt.” —Geograph. Antiq. lib. iii. cap. 13.
This belief of an ocean in the heavens, or “waters above the firmament,” was one of the many physical errors in which the early fathers bewildered themselves. Le P. Baltus, in his “Défense des Saints Pères accusés de Platonisme,” taking it for granted that the ancients were more correct in their notions (which by no means appears from what I have already quoted), adduces the obstinacy of the fathers, in this whimsical opinion, as a proof of their repugnance to even truth from the hands of the philosophers. This is a strange way of defending the fathers, and attributes much more than they deserve to the philosophers. For an abstract of this work of Baltus, (the opposer of Fontenelle, Van Dale, &c. in the famous Oracle controversy,) see “Bibliothèque des Auteurs Ecclésiast. du 180 siècle, part 1. tom. ii.”
There were various opinions among the ancients with respect to their lunar establishment; some made it an elysium, and others a purgatory; while some supposed it to be a kind of entrepôt between heaven and earth, where souls which had left their bodies, and those that were on their way to join them, were deposited in the valleys of Hecate, and remained till further orders. Τοις περι σεληνην αερι λεγειν αυτας κατοικειν, και απ' αυτης κατω χωρειν εις την περιγειονγενεσιν. —Stob. lib. i. Eclog. Physic.
The pupil and mistress of Epicurus, who called her his “dear little Leontium” (Λεονταριον), as appears by a fragment of one of his letters in Laertius. This Leontium was a woman of talent; “she had the impudence (says Cicero) to write against Theophrastus;” and Cicero, at the same time, gives her a name which is neither polite nor translatable. “Meretricula etiam Leontium contra Theophrastum scribere ausa est.” —De Natur. Deor. She left a daughter called Danae, who was just as rigid an Epicurean as her mother; something like Wieland's Danae in Agathon.
It would sound much better, I think, if the name were Leontia, as it occurs the first time in Laertius; but M. Ménage will not hear of this reading.
Pythias was a woman whom Aristotle loved, and to whom after her death he paid divine honours, solemnizing her memory by the same sacrifices which the Athenians offered to the Goddess Ceres. For this impious gallantry the philosopher was, of course, censured; but it would be well if certain of our modern Stagyrites showed a little of this superstition about the memory of their mistresses.
Socrates, who used to console himself in the society of Aspasia for those “less endearing ties” which he found at home with Xantippe. For an account of this extraordinary creature, Aspasia, and her school of erudite luxury at Athens, see L'Histoire de l'Académie, &c. tom. xxxi. p. 69. Ségur rather fails on the inspiring subject of Aspasia. —“Les Femmes,” tom. i. p. 122.
The Author of the “Voyage du Monde de Descartes” has also placed these philosophers in the moon, and has allotted seigneuries to them, as well as to the astronomers (part ii. p. 143.); but he ought not to have forgotten their wives and mistresses; “curæ non ipsâ in morte relinquunt.”
There are some sensible letters extant under the name of this fair Pythagorean. They are addressed to her female friends upon the education of children, the treatment of servants, &c. One, in particular, to Nicostrata, whose husband had given her reasons for jealousy, contains such truly considerate and rational advice, that it ought to be translated for the edification of all married ladies. See Gale's Opuscul. Myth. Phys. p. 741.
Pythagoras was remarkable for fine hair, and Doctor Thiers (in his Histoire des Perruques) seems to take for granted it was all his own; as he has not mentioned him among those ancients who were obliged to have recourse to the “coma apposititia.” L'Hist. des Perruques, chap. i.
The river Alpheus, which flowed by Pisa or Olympia, and into which it was customary to throw offerings of different kinds, during the celebration of the Olympic games. In the pretty romance of Clitophon and Leucippe, the river is supposed to carry these offerings as bridal gifts to the fountain Arethusa. Και επι την Αρεθουσαν ουτω τον Αλφειον νυμφοστολει. οταν ουν η των ολυμπιων εορτη, κ. τ. λ. Lib. i.
TO CLOE.
IMITATED FROM MARTIAL.
Howe'er its splendour used to thrill me;
And ev'n that cheek of roseate hue,—
To lose it, Cloe, scarce would kill me.
However much I've rav'd about it;
And sweetly as that lip can kiss,
I think I could exist without it.
That, sooth my love, I know not whether
I might not bring myself at last,
To—do without you altogether.
THE WREATH AND THE CHAIN.
I bring thee too a flowery wreath;
The gold shall never wear a stain,
The flow'rets long shall sweetly breathe.
Come, tell me which the tie shall be,
To bind thy gentle heart to me.
Bright as Minerva's yellow hair,
When the last beam of evening sheds
Its calm and sober lustre there.
The Wreath's of brightest myrtle wove,
With sun-lit drops of bliss among it,
And many a rose-leaf, cull'd by Love,
To heal his lip when bees have stung it.
Come, tell me which the tie shall be,
To bind thy gentle heart to me.
Which answers when the tongue is loath,
Thou lik'st the form of either tie,
And spread'st thy playful hands for both.
Ah!—if there were not something wrong,
The world would see them blended oft;
The Chain would make the Wreath so strong!
The Wreath would make the Chain so soft!
Then might the gold, the flow'rets be
Sweet fetters for my love and me.
That (heaven alone can tell the reason)
When mingled thus they cease to shine,
Or shine but for a transient season.
Whether the Chain may press too much,
Or that the Wreath is slightly braided,
Let but the gold the flow'rets touch,
And all their bloom, their glow is faded!
Oh! better to be always free,
Than thus to bind my love to me.
And, as she turn'd an upward glance,
Across her brow's divine expanse.
Just then, the garland's brightest rose
Gave one of its love-breathing sighs—
Oh! who can ask how Fanny chose,
That ever look'd in Fanny's eyes?
“The Wreath, my life, the Wreath shall be
“The tie to bind my soul to thee.”
TO ------
[And hast thou mark'd the pensive shade]
That many a time obscures my brow,
Midst all the joys, beloved maid,
Which thou canst give, and only thou?
The bright looks that before me shine;
For never throbb'd a bosom yet
Could feel their witchery, like mine.
And blushing to have felt so blest,
Thou dost but lift thy languid lid,
Again to close it on my breast;—
Thine own to give, and mine to feel;
Yet ev'n in them, my heart has known
The sigh to rise, the tear to steal.
When he who first thy soul possess'd,
Like me awak'd its witching powers,
Like me was lov'd, like me was blest.
Perhaps hath all as sweetly dwelt;
Upon his words thine ear hath hung,
With transport all as purely felt.
To damp and wither present bliss?
Thou'rt now my own, heart, spirit, all,
And heaven could grant no more than this!
I would be first, be sole to thee,
Thou shouldst have but begun to live,
The hour that gave thy heart to me.
Love should have kept that leaf alone
On which he first so brightly trac'd
That thou wert, soul and all, my own.
TO ---'S PICTURE.
No more will let thee soothe my pain;
Yet, tell her, it has cost this heart
Some pangs, to give thee back again
With which she made thy semblance mine,
As bitter is the burning tear,
With which I now the gift resign.
As some exchange for taking thee,
The tranquil look which first I wore,
When her eyes found me calm and free;
The spirit that my heart then knew—
Yet, no, 'tis vain—go, picture, go—
Smile at me once, and then—adieu!
FRAGMENT OF A MYTHOLOGICAL HYMN TO LOVE.
Before the day-star learn'd to move,
In pomp of fire, along his grand career,
Glancing the beamy shafts of light
From his rich quiver to the farthest sphere,
Thou wert alone, oh Love!
Nestling beneath the wings of ancient Night,
Whose horrors seem'd to smile in shadowing thee.
As through the dim expanse it wander'd wide;
No kindred spirit caught thy sigh,
As o'er the watery waste it lingering died.
That latent in his heart was sleeping,—
Oh Sympathy! that lonely hour
Saw Love himself thy absence weeping.
Celestial airs along the water glide:—
What Spirit art thou, moving o'er the tide
So beautiful? oh, not of earth,
But, in that glowing hour, the birth
Of the young Godhead's own creative dreams.
'Tis she!
Psyche, the firstborn spirit of the air.
To thee, oh Love, she turns,
On thee her eyebeam burns:
Blest hour, before all worlds ordain'd to be!
They meet—
The blooming god—the spirit fair
Meet in communion sweet.
All nature feels the thrill divine,
The veil of Chaos is withdrawn,
And their first kiss is great Creation's dawn!
Love and Psyche are here considered as the active and passive principles of creation, and the universe is supposed to have received its first harmonizing impulse from the nuptial sympathy between these two powers. A marriage is generally the first step in cosmogony. Timæus held Form to be the father, and Matter the mother of the World; Elion and Berouth, I think, are Sanchoniatho's first spiritual lovers, and Manco-capac and his wife introduced creation amongst the Peruvians. In short, Harlequin seems to have studied cosmogonies, when he said “tutto il mondo è fatto come la nostra famiglia.”
TO HIS SERENE HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF MONTPENSIER,
ON HIS PORTRAIT OF THE LADY ADELAIDE FORBES.
Howe'er remote, howe'er refin'd,
And o'er the kindling canvass tell
The silent story of the mind;
And fix, by mimic light and shade,
Her morning tinges, ere they fly,
Her evening blushes, ere they fade;—
The gift, by which her art divine
Above all others proudly towers,—
And these, oh Prince! are richly thine.
In almost living truth exprest,
This bright memorial of a face
On which her eye delights to rest;
The smile of peace, the bloom of youth,
The cheek, that blushes to be seen,
The eye that tells the bosom's truth;
Our eyes with lingering pleasure rove,
Blessing the touch whose various hue
Thus brings to mind the form we love;
And own it with a zest, a zeal,
A pleasure, nearer to the heart
Than critic taste can ever feel.
THE FALL OF HEBE.
A DITHYRAMBIC ODE.
When the immortals at their banquet lay;
The bowl
Sparkled with starry dew,
Within whose orbs, the almighty Power,
At nature's dawning hour,
Stor'd the rich fluid of ethereal soul.
Around,
Soft odorous clouds, that upward wing their flight
From eastern isles
And with rich fragrance all their bosoms fill'd),
In circles flew, and, melting as they flew,
A liquid daybreak o'er the board distill'd.
All must be luxury, where Lyæus smiles.
His locks divine
Were crown'd
With a bright meteor-braid,
Which, like an ever-springing wreath of vine,
Shot into brilliant leafy shapes,
And o'er his brow in lambent tendrils play'd:
While mid the foliage hung,
Like lucid grapes,
A thousand clustering buds of light,
Cull'd from the gardens of the galaxy.
Lay lovely, as when first the Syrens sung
And all the curtains of the deep, undrawn,
Reveal'd her sleeping in its azure bed.
The captive deity
Hung lingering on her eyes and lip,
With looks of ecstasy.
Now, on his arm,
In blushes she repos'd,
And, while he gazed on each bright charm,
To shade his burning eyes her hand in dalliance stole.
The nectar'd wave
Lyæus gave,
And from her eyelids, half-way clos'd,
Sent forth a melting gleam,
Which fell, like sun-dew, in the bowl:
While her bright hair, in mazy flow
Of gold descending
Adown her cheek's luxurious glow,
Hung o'er the goblet's side,
And was reflected in its crystal tide,
Whose sunny leaves, at evening hour
With roses of Cyrene blending ,
Hang o'er the mirror of some silvery stream.
Shone in the hands
Of dimpled Hebe, as she wing'd her feet
Up
The empyreal mount,
To drain the soul-drops at their stellar fount ;
And still
As the resplendent rill
Gushed forth into the cup with mantling heat,
Her watchful care
Was still to cool its liquid fire
With snow-white sprinklings of that feathery air
The children of the Pole respire,
Where life is all a spring, and north winds never blow.
Bright Hebe, what a tear,
And what a blush were thine,
When, as the breath of every Grace
Wafted thy feet along the studded sphere,
Some star, that shone beneath thy tread,
Raising its amorous head
To kiss those matchless feet,
Check'd thy career too fleet;
And all heaven's host of eyes
Entranc'd, but fearful all,
Saw thee, sweet Hebe, prostrate fall
Upon the bright floor of the azure skies ;
Where, mid its stars, thy beauty lay,
As blossom, shaken from the spray
Of a spring thorn
Lies mid the liquid sparkles of the morn.
Or, as in temples of the Paphian shade,
The worshippers of Beauty's queen behold
An image of their rosy idol, laid
Upon a diamond shrine.
Which had pursued the flying fair,
Of her bright hair,
Now, as she fell,—oh wanton breeze!
Ruffled the robe, whose graceful flow
Hung o'er those limbs of unsunn'd snow,
Purely as the Eleusinian veil
Hangs o'er the Mysteries!
Love bless'd the breeze!
The Muses blush'd;
And every cheek was hid behind a lyre,
While every eye looked laughing through the strings.
Which Jove himself was to have quaff'd?
By the fall'n Hebe's side;
While, in slow lingering drops, th' ethereal tide,
As conscious of its own rich essence, ebb'd away.
In that blest hour,
And, with a wing of love,
Brush'd off the goblet's scatter'd tears,
As, trembling near the edge of heaven they ran,
And sent them floating to our orb below?
Essence of immortality!
The shower
Fell glowing through the spheres;
While all around new tints of bliss,
New odours and new light,
Enrich'd its radiant flow.
Now, with a liquid kiss,
Of Heaven's luminous Lyre ,
Stealing the soul of music in its flight:
And now, amid the breezes bland,
That whisper from the planets as they roll,
The bright libation, softly fann'd
By all their sighs, meandering stole.
They who, from Atlas' height,
Beheld this rosy flame
Descending through the waste of night,
Thought 'twas some planet, whose empyreal frame
Had kindled, as it rapidly revolv'd
Around its fervid axle, and dissolv'd
Into a flood so bright!
Within his twilight bower,
Lay sweetly sleeping
When round him, in profusion weeping,
Dropp'd the celestial shower,
Steeping
The rosy clouds, that curl'd
About his infant head,
Like myrrh upon the locks of Cupid shed.
But, when the waking boy
Wav'd his exhaling tresses through the sky,
O morn of joy!—
The tide divine,
All glorious with the vermil dye
It drank beneath his orient eye,
Distill'd, in dews, upon the world,
And every drop was wine, was heavenly wine!
On which descended first that shower,
All fresh from Jove's nectareous springs;—
Oh far less sweet the flower, the sod,
O'er which the Spirit of the Rainbow flings
The magic mantle of her solar God!
Though I have styled this poem a Dithyrambic Ode, I cannot presume to say that it possesses, in any degree, the characteristics of that species of poetry. The nature of the ancient Dithyrambic is very imperfectly known. According to M. Burette, a licentious irregularity of metre, an extravagant research of thought and expression, and a rude embarrassed construction, are among its most distinguishing features; and in all these respects, I have but too closely, I fear, followed my models. Burette adds, “Ces caractères des dityrambes se font sentir à ceux qui lisent attentivement les odes de Pindare.” —Mémoires de l'Acad. vol. x. p. 306. The same opinion may be collected from Schmidt's dissertation upon the subject. I think, however, if the Dithyrambics of Pindar were in our possession, we should find that, however wild and fanciful, they were by no means the tasteless jargon they are represented, and that even their irregularity was what Boileau calls “un beau désordre.” Chiabrera, who has been styled the Pindar of Italy, and from whom all its poetry upon the Greek model was called Chiabreresco (as Crescimbeni informs us, lib. i. cap. 12.), has given, amongst his Vendemmie, a Dithyrambic, “all' uso de' Greci;” full of those compound epithets, which, we are told, were a chief characteristic of the style (συνθετους δε λεξεις εποιουν —Suid. Διθυραμβοδιδ.); such as
Nubicalpestator.
Non più dar pregio a tue bellezze e taci,
Che se Bacco fa vezzi alle mie labbra
Fo le fiche a' vostri baci.
------ esser vorrei Coppier,
E se troppo desiro
Deh fossi io Bottiglier.
Rime del Chiabrera, part ii. p. 352.
This is a Platonic fancy. The philosopher supposes, in his Timæus, that, when the Deity had formed the soul of the world, he proceeded to the composition of other souls, in which process, says Plato, he made use of the same cup, though the ingredients he mingled were not quite so pure as for the former; and having refined the mixture with a little of his own essence, he distributed it among the stars, which served as reservoirs of the fluid.—Ταυτ' ειπε και παλιν επι τον προτερον κρατηρα εν ω την του παντος ψυχην κεραννυς εμισγε, κ. τ. λ.
We learn from Theophrastus, that the roses of Cyrene were particularly fragrant.—Ευοσματα τα δε τα εν Κυρηνη ροδα.
Heraclitus (Physicus) held the soul to be a spark of the stellar essence—“Scintilla stellaris essentiæ.” —Macrobius, in Somn. Scip. lib. i. cap. 14.
The country of the Hyperboreans. These people were supposed to be placed so far north that the north wind could not affect them; they lived longer than any other mortals; passed their whole time in music and dancing, &c. &c. But the most extravagant fiction related of them is that to which the two lines preceding allude. It was imagined that, instead of our vulgar atmosphere, the Hyperboreans breathed nothing but feathers! According to Herodotus and Pliny, this idea was suggested by the quantity of snow which was observed to fall in those regions; thus the former: Τα ων πτερα εικαζοντας την χιονα τους Σκυθας τε και τους περιοικους δοκεω λεγειν. —Herodot. lib. iv. cap. 31. Ovid tells the fable otherwise: see Metamorph. lib. xv.
Mr. O'Halloran, and some other Irish Antiquarians, have been at great expense of learning to prove that the strange country, where they took snow for feathers, was Ireland, and that the famous Abaris was an Irish Druid. Mr. Rowland, however, will have it that Abaris was a Welshman, and that his name is only a corruption of Ap Rees!
It is Servius, I believe, who mentions this unlucky trip which Hebe made in her occupation of cup-bearer; and Hoffman tells it after him: “Cum Hebe pocula Jovi administrans, perque lubricum minus cauté incedens, cecidisset,” &c.
The arcane symbols of this ceremony were deposited in the cista, where they lay religiously concealed from the eyes of the profane. They were generally carried in the procession by an ass; and hence the proverb, which one may so often apply in the world, “asinus portat mysteria.” See the Divine Legation, book ii. sect. 4.
In the Geoponica, lib. ii. cap. 17., there is a fable somewhat like this descent of the nectar to earth. Εν ουρανω των θεων ευωχουμενων, και του νεκταπος πολλου παρακειμενου, ανασκιρτησαι χοπεια τον Ερωτα και συσσεισαι τω πτερω του κρατηρος την βασιν, και περιτρεψαι μεν αυτον: το δε νεκταρ εις την γην εκχυθεν, κ. τ. λ. Vid. Autor. de Re Rust. edit. Cantab. 1704.
The constellation Lyra. The astrologers attribute great virtues to this sign in ascendenti, which are enumerated by Pontano, in his Urania:
Emodulans, mulcetque novo vaga sidera cantu,
Quo captæ nascentum animæ concordia ducunt
Pectora, &c.
The Egyptians represented the dawn of day by a young boy seated upon a lotos. Ειτε Αιγυπτους εωρακως αρχην ανατολης παιδιον νεογνον γραφοντας επι λωτω καθεζομενον. —Plutarch. περι του μη χραν εμμετρ. See also his Treatise de Isid. et Osir. Observing that the lotos showed its head above water at sunrise, and sank again at his setting, they conceived the idea of consecrating this flower to Osiris, or the sun.
This symbol of a youth sitting upon a lotos is very frequent on the Abraxases, or Basilidian stones. See Montfaucon, tom. ii. planche 158., and the “Supplement,” &c. tom. ii. lib. vii. chap. 5.
The ancients esteemed those flowers and trees the sweetest upon which the rainbow had appeared to rest; and the wood they chiefly burned in sacrifices, was that which the smile of Iris had consecrated. Plutarch. Sympos. lib. iv. cap. 2. where (as Vossius remarks) καιουσι, instead of καλουσι, is undoubtedly the genuine reading. See Vossius, for some curious particularities of the rainbow, De Origin. et Progress. Idololat. lib. iii. cap. 13.
RINGS AND SEALS.
“The charm is broken!—once betray'd,
“Never can this wrong'd heart rely
“On word or look, on oath or sigh.
“Take back the gifts, so fondly given,
“With promis'd faith and vows to heaven;
“That little ring which, night and morn,
“With wedded truth my hand hath worn;
“That seal which oft, in moments blest,
“Thou hast upon my lip imprest,
“And sworn its sacred spring should be
“A fountain seal'd for only thee:
“All sullied, lost and hateful now!”
While, oh, her every tear and look
Were such as angels look and shed,
When man is by the world misled.
Gently I whisper'd, “Fanny, dear!
“Not half thy lover's gifts are here:
“Say, where are all the kisses given,
“From morn to noon, from noon to even,—
“Those signets of true love, worth more
“Than Solomon's own seal of yore,—
“Where are those gifts, so sweet, so many?
“Come, dearest,—give back all, if any.”
Lest all the nymph had sworn was true,
I saw a smile relenting rise
'Mid the moist azure of her eyes,
While yet in mid-air hangs the dew.
She let her cheek repose on mine,
She let my arms around her twine;
One kiss was half allowed, and then—
The ring and seal were hers again.
“There are gardens, supposed to be those of King Solomon, in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem. The friars show a fountain, which, they say, is the ‘sealed fountain’ to which the holy spouse in the Canticles is compared; and they pretend a tradition, that Solomon shut up these springs and put his signet upon the door, to keep them for his own drinking.” —Maundrell's Travels. See also the notes to Mr. Good's Translation of the Song of Solomon.
TO MISS SUSAN B*CKF---D.
ON HER SINGING.
A song, like those thy lip hath given,
And it was sung by shapes of light,
Who look'd and breath'd, like thee, of heaven.
And I have said, when morning shone,
“Why should the night-witch, Fancy, keep
“These wonders for herself alone?”
Such tones to one of mortal birth;
I knew not then that Heaven had sent
A voice, a form like thine on earth.
Through which my path of life has led,
When I have heard the sweetest lays
From lips of rosiest lustre shed;
From Beauty's lip, in sweetness vying
With music's own melodious bird,
When on the rose's bosom lying;
Their loveliest bloom and softest thrill,
My heart hath sigh'd, my ear hath pin'd
For something lovelier, softer still:—
In thee, thou sweetest living lyre,
Through which the soul of song e'er pass'd,
Or feeling breath'd its sacred fire.
Of fancy's dreams, could hear or see
Of music's sigh or beauty's light
Is realiz'd, at once, in thee!
IMPROMPTU, ON LEAVING SOME FRIENDS.
The friends I found so cordial-hearted;
Dear shall be the day we met,
And dear shall be the night we parted.
Must with the lapse of time decay,
Yet still, when thus in mirth you meet,
Fill high to him that's far away!
Alive within your social glass;
Let that be still the magic round,
O'er which Oblivion dares not pass.
A WARNING.
TO ------
Did nature mould thee all so bright,
That thou shouldst e'er be brought to weep
O'er languid virtue's fatal sleep,
O'er shame extinguish'd, honour fled,
Peace lost, heart wither'd, feeling dead?
Which sheds eternal purity.
Thou hast, within those sainted eyes,
So fair a transcript of the skies,
In lines of light such heavenly lore,
That man should read them and adore.
Yet have I known a gentle maid
Whose mind and form were both array'd
Who wore that clear, celestial sign,
Which seems to mark the brow that's fair
For destiny's peculiar care:
Whose bosom too, like Dian's own,
Was guarded by a sacred zone,
Where the bright gem of virtue shone;
Whose eyes had, in their light, a charm
Against all wrong, and guile, and harm.
Yet, hapless maid, in one sad hour,
These spells have lost their guardian power;
The gem has been beguil'd away;
Her eyes have lost their chastening ray;
The modest pride, the guiltless shame,
The smiles that from reflection came,
All, all have fled, and left her mind
A faded monument behind;
The ruins of a once pure shrine,
No longer fit for guest divine.
Oh! 'twas a sight I wept to see—
Heaven keep the lost one's fate from thee!
TO ------
['Tis time, I feel, to leave thee now]
While yet my soul is something free;
While yet those dangerous eyes allow
One minute's thought to stray from thee.
Every chance that brings me nigh thee,
Brings my ruin nearer, nearer,—
I am lost, unless I fly thee.
Doom me not thus so soon to fall;
Duties, fame, and hopes await me,—
But that eye would blast them all!
As ever yet allur'd or sway'd,
And couldst, without a sigh, behold
The ruin which thyself had made.
That eye but once would smile on me,
Ev'n as thou art, how far beyond
Fame, duty, wealth, that smile would be!
Inglorious at thy feet reclin'd,
I'd sigh my dreams of fame away,
The world for thee forgot, resign'd.
Never to meet again,—no, never.
False woman, what a mind and heart
Thy treachery has undone for ever!
WOMAN.
A smiling, fluttering, jilting throng;
And, wise too late, I burn with shame,
To think I've been your slave so long.
From folly kind, from cunning loath,
Too cold for bliss, too weak for love,
Yet feigning all that's best in both;
More joy it gives to woman's breast
To make ten frigid coxcombs vain,
Than one true, manly lover blest.
Oh! blot me from the race of men,
Kind pitying Heaven, by death or worse,
If e'er I love such things again.
TO ------
[Come, take thy harp—'tis vain to muse]
Euripides.
Upon the gathering ills we see;
Oh! take thy harp and let me lose
All thoughts of ill in hearing thee.
Thy song could make my soul forget—
Nay, nay, in pity, dry that tear,
All may be well, be happy yet.
Once more upon the dear harp lie,
And I will cease to dream of harm,
Will smile at fate, while thou art nigh.
We us'd to love long, long ago,
Before our hearts had known as much
As now, alas! they bleed to know.
Of all that look'd so smiling then,
Now vanish'd, lost—oh pray thee, cease,
I cannot bear those sounds again.
I see thy tears flow fast with mine—
Come, come to this devoted heart,
'Tis breaking, but it still is thine!
A VISION OF PHILOSOPHY.
The venerable man ; a healthy bloom
Mingled its softness with the vigorous thought
That tower'd upon his brow; and, when he spoke,
'Twas language sweeten'd into song—such holy sounds
As oft, they say, the wise and virtuous hear,
When death is nigh ; and still, as he unclos'd
His sacred lips, an odour, all as bland
As ocean-breezes gather from the flowers
That blossom in elyseum , breath'd around.
With silent awe we listen'd, while he told
Of the dark veil which many an age had hung
O'er Nature's form, till, long explored by man,
The mystic shroud grew thin and luminous,
And glimpses of that heavenly form shone through:—
Of magic wonders, that were known and taught
By him (or Cham or Zoroaster named)
Who mus'd amid the mighty cataclysm,
O'er his rude tablets of primeval lore ;
And gathering round him, in the sacred ark,
Let not the living star of science sink
Beneath the waters, which ingulph'd a world!—
Of visions, by Calliope reveal'd
To him , who trac'd upon his typic lyre
And the grand Doric heptachord of heaven.
With all of pure, of wondrous and arcane,
Which the grave sons of Mochus, many a night,
Told to the young and bright-hair'd visitant
Of Carmel's sacred mount. —Then, in a flow
Through many a maze of Garden and of Porch,
Of heavenly truth lay, like a broken beam
Into a thousand hues, is sunshine still ,
The lone , eternal One, who dwells above,
From that high fount of spirit, through the grades
With atoms vague, corruptible, and dark;
Corrupted all, nor its ethereal touch
As some bright river, which has roll'd along
Through meads of flowery light and mines of gold,
When pour'd at length into the dusky deep,
Disdains to take at once its briny taint,
But keeps unchanged awhile the lustrous tinge,
Or balmy freshness, of the scenes it left.
Of nymphs and genii bore him from our eyes.
The fair illusion fled! and, as I wak'd,
To that bright realm of dreams, that spirit-world,
Which mortals know by its long track of light
O'er midnight's sky, and call the Galaxy.
In Plutarch's Essay on the Decline of the Oracles, Cleombrotus, one of the interlocutors, describes an extraordinary man whom he had met with, after long research, upon the banks of the Red Sea. Once in every year this supernatural personage appeared to mortals, and conversed with them: the rest of his time he passed among the Genii and the Nymphs. Περι την ερυθραν θαλασσαν ευρον, ανθρωποις ανα παν ετος απαξ εντυγχανοντα, ταλλα δε συν ταις νυμφαις, νομασι και δαιμοσι, ως εφασκε. He spoke in a tone not far removed from singing, and whenever he opened his lips, a fragrance filled the place: φθεγγομενου δε τον τοπον ευωδια κατειχε, του στοματος ηδιστον αποπνεοντος. From him Cleombrotus learned the doctrine of a plurality of worlds.
The celebrated Janus Dousa, a little before his death, imagined that he heard a strain of music in the air. See the poem of Heinsius “In harmoniam quam paulo ante obitum audire sibi visus est Dousa.” Page 501.
νασον ωκεανιδες
αυραι περιπνεουσιν: αν-
θεμα δε χρυσου φλεγει.
Pindar. Olymp. ii.
Cham, the son of Noah, is supposed to have taken with him into the ark the principal doctrines of magical, or rather of natural, science, which he had inscribed upon some very durable substances, in order that they might resist the ravages of the deluge, and transmit the secrets of antediluvian knowledge to his posterity. See the extracts made by Bayle, in his article, Cham. The identity of Cham and Zoroaster depends upon the authority of Berosus (or rather the impostor Annius), and a few more such respectable testimonies. See Naudé's Apologie pour les Grands Hommes, &c. chap viii., where he takes more trouble than is necessary in refuting this gratuitous supposition.
Chamum à posteris hujus artis admiratoribus Zoroastrum, seu vivum astrum, propterea fuisse dictum et pro Deo habitum. —Bochart. Geograph. Sacr. lib. iv. cap. 1.
Orpheus.—Paulinus, in his Hebdomades, cap. 2. lib. iii. has endeavoured to show, after the Platonists, that man is a diapason, or octave, made up of a diatesseron, which is his soul, and a diapente, which is his body. Those frequent allusions to music, by which the ancient philosophers illustrated their sublime theories, must have tended very much to elevate the character of the art, and to enrich it with associations of the grandest and most interesting nature. See a preceding note, for their ideas upon the harmony of the spheres. Heraclitus compared the mixture of good and evil in this world, to the blended varieties of harmony in a musical instrument (Plutarch. de Animæ Procreat.); and Euryphamus, the Pythagorean, in a fragment preserved by Stobæus, describes human life, in its perfection, as a sweet and well tuned lyre. Some of the ancients were so fanciful as to suppose that the operations of the memory were regulated by a kind of musical cadence, and that ideas occurred to it “per arsin et thesin,” while others converted the whole man into a mere harmonized machine, whose motion depended upon a certain tension of the body, analogous to that of the strings in an instrument. Cicero indeed ridicules Aristoxenus for this fancy, and says, “Let him teach singing, and leave philosophy to Aristotle;” but Aristotle himself, though decidedly opposed to the harmonic speculations of the Pythagoreans and Platonists, could sometimes condescend to enliven his doctrines by reference to the beauties of musical science; as, in the treatise Περι κοσμου attributed to him, Καθαπερ δε εν χορω, κορυφαιου καταρξαντος, κ. τ. λ.
The Abbé Batteux, in his enquiry into the doctrine of the Stoics, attributes to those philosophers the same mode of illustration. “L'âme étoit cause active ποιειν αιτιος; le corps cause passive ηδε του πασχειν:—l'une agissant dans l'autre; et y prenant, par son action même, un caractère, des formes, des modifications, qu'elle n'avoit pas par elle-même; à peu près comme l'air, qui, chassé dans un instrument de musique, fait connoître, par les différens sons qu'il produit, les différentes modifications qu'il y reçoit.” See a fine simile founded upon this notion in Cardinal Polignac's poem, lib 5. v.734.
Phythagoras is represented in Iamblichus as descending with great solemnity from Mount Carmel, for which reason the Carmelites have claimed him as one of their fraternity. This Mochus or Moschus, with the descendants of whom Phythagoras conversed in Phœnicia, and from whom he derived the doctrines of atomic philosophy, is supposed by some to be the same with Moses. Huett has adopted this idea, Démonstration Evangélique, Prop. iv. chap. 2. § 7.; and Le Clerc, amongst others, has refuted it. See Biblioth. Choisie, tom. i. p. 75. It is certain, however, that the doctrine of atoms was known and promulgated long before Epicurus. “With the fountains of Democritus,” says Cicero, “the gardens of Epicurus were watered;” and the learned author of the Intellectual System has shown, that all the early philosophers, till the time of Plato, were atomists. We find Epicurus, however, boasting that his tenets were new and unborrowed, and perhaps few among the ancients had any stronger claim to originality. In truth, if we examine their schools of philosophy, notwithstanding the peculiarities which seem to distinguish them from each other, we may generally observe that the difference is but verbal and trifling; and that, among those various and learned heresies, there is scarcely one to be selected, whose opinions are its own, original and exclusive. The doctrine of the world's eternity may be traced through all the sects. The continual metempsychosis of Pythagoras, the grand periodic year of the Stoics, (at the conclusion of which the universe is supposed to return to its original order, and commence a new revolution,) the successive dissolution and combination of atoms maintained by the Epicureans—all these tenets are but different intimations of the same general belief in the eternity of the world. As explained by St. Austin, the periodic year of the Stoics disagrees only so far with the idea of the Pythagoreans, that instead of an endless transmission of the soul through a variety of bodies, it restores the same body and soul to repeat their former round of existence, so that the “identical Plato, who lectured in the Academy of Athens, shall again and again, at certain intervals, during the lapse of eternity, appear in the same Academy and resume the same functions—” ------ sic eadem tempora temporaliumque rerum volumina repeti, ut v. g. sicut in isto sæculo Plato philosophus in urbe Atheniensi, in eâ scholâ quæ Academia dicta est, discipulos docuit, ita per innumerabilia retro sæcula, multum plexis quidem intervallis, sed certis, et idem Plato, et eadem civitas, eademque schola, iidemque discipuli repetiti et per innumerabilia deinde sæcula repetendi sint. —De Civitat. Dei, lib. xii. cap. 13. Vanini, in his dialogues, has given us a similar explication of the periodic revolutions of the world. “Eâ de causâ, qui nunc sunt in usu ritus, centies millies fuerunt, totiesque renascentur quoties ceciderunt.” 52.
The paradoxical notions of the Stoics upon the beauty, the riches, the dominion of their imaginary sage, are among the most distinguishing characteristics of their school, and, according to their advocate Lipsius, were peculiar to that sect. “Priora illa (decreta) quæ passim in philosophantium scholis ferè obtinent, ista quæ peculiaria huic sectæ et habent contradictionem: i. e. paradoxa.” —Manuduct. ad Stoic. Philos. lib. iii. dissertat. 2. But it is evident (as the Abbé Garnier has remarked, Mémoires de l'Acad. tom. xxxv.) that even these absurdities of the Stoics are borrowed, and that Plato is the source of all their extravagant paradoxes. We find their dogma, “dives qui sapiens,” (which Clement of Alexandria has transferred from the Philosopher to the Christian, Pædagog. lib. iii. cap. 6.) expressed in the prayer of Socrates at the end of the Phædrus. Ο φιλε Παν τε και αλλοι οσοι τηδε θεοι, δοιητε μοι καλω γενεσθαι τανδοθεν: ταξωθεν δε οσα εχω, τοις εντος ειναι μοι φιλια: πλουσιον δε νομιζοιμι τον σοφον. And many other instances might be adduced from the Αντερασται, the Πολιτικος, &c. to prove that these weeds of paradox were all gathered among the bowers of the Academy. Hence it is that Cicero, in the preface to his Paradoxes, calls them Socratica; and Lipsius, exulting in the patronage of Socrates, says “Ille totus est noster.” This is indeed a coalition, which evinces as much as can be wished the confused similitude of ancient philosophical opinions: the father of scepticism is here enrolled amongst the founders of the Portico; he, whose best knowledge was that of his own ignorance, is called in to authorise the pretensions of the most obstinate dogmatists in all antiquity.
Rutilius, in his Itinerarium, has riduculed the sabbath of the Jews, as “lassati mollis imago Dei;” but Epicurus gave an eternal holyday to his gods, and, rather than disturb the slumbers of Olympus, denied at once the interference of a Providence. He does not, however, seem to have been singular in this opinion. Theophilus of Antioch, if he deserve any credit, imputes a similar belief to Pythagoras:—φησι (Πυθαγορασ) τε των παντων θεους ανθρωπων μηδεν φροντιζειν. And Plutarch, though so hostile to the followers of Epicurus, has unaccountably adopted the very same theological error. Thus, after quoting the opinions of Anaxagoras and Plato upon divinity, he adds, Κοινως ουν αμαρτανουσιν αμφοτεροι. οτι τον θεον εποιησαν επιστεφομενον των ανθρωπινων. —De Placit. Philosoph. lib. i. cap. 7. Plato himself has attributed a degree of indifference to the gods, which is not far removed from the apathy of Epicurus's heaven; as thus, in his Philebus, where Protarchus asks, Ουκουν εικος γε ουτε χαιρειν θεους, ουτε το εναντιον; and Socrates answers, Πανυ μεν ουν εικος, ασχημον γουν αυτων εκατερον γιγνομενον εστιν;—while Aristotle supposes a still more absurd neutrality, and concludes, by no very flattering analogy, that the deity is as incapable of virtue as of vice. Και γαρ ωσπερ ουδεν θηριου εστι κακια, ουδ' αρετη, ουτως ουδε θεου. —Ethic. Nicomach. lib. vii. cap. 1. In truth, Aristotle, upon the subject of Providence, was little more correct than Epicurus. He supposed the moon to be the limit of divine interference, excluding of course this sublunary world from its influence. The first definition of the world, in his treatise Περι Κοσμου (if this treatise be really the work of Aristotle) agrees, almost verbum verbo, with that in the letter of Epicurus to Pythocles; and both omit the mention of a deity. In his Ethics, too, he intimates a doubt whether the gods feel any interest in the concerns of mankind.—Ει γαρ τις επιμελεια των ανθρωπινων υπο θεων γινεται. It is true, he adds Ωσπερ δοκει, but even this is very sceptical.
In these erroneous conceptions of Aristotle, we trace the cause of that general neglect which his philosophy experienced among the early Christians. Plato is seldom much more orthodox, but the obscure enthusiasm of his style allowed them to accommodate all his fancies to their own purpose. Such glowing steel was easily moulded, and Platonism became a sword in the hands of the fathers.
The Providence of the Stoics, so vaunted in their school, was a power as contemptibly inefficient as the rest. All was fate in the system of the Portico. The chains of destiny were thrown over Jupiter himself, and their deity was like the Borgia of the epigrammatist, “et Cæsar et nihil.” Not even the language of Seneca can reconcile this degradation of divinity. “Ille ipse omnium conditor ac rector scripsit quidam fata, sed sequitur; semper paret, semel jussit.” —Lib. de Providentiâ, cap. 5.
With respect to the difference between the Stoics, Peripatetics, and Academicians, the following words of Cicero prove that he saw but little to distinguish them from each other:— “Peripateticos et Academicos, nominibus differentes, re congruentes; a quibus Stoici ipsi verbis magis quam sententiis dissenserunt.” —Academic. lib. ii. 5.; and perhaps what Reid has remarked upon one of their points of controversy might be applied as effectually to the reconcilement of all the rest. “The dispute between the Stoics and Peripatetics was probably all for want of definition. The one said they were good under the control of reason, the other that they should be eradicated.” —Essay, vol. iii. In short, it appears a no less difficult matter to establish the boundaries of opinion between any two of the philosophical sects, than it would be to fix the landmarks of those estates in the moon, which Ricciolus so generously allotted to his brother astronomers. Accordingly we observe some of the greatest men of antiquity passing without scruple from school to school, according to the fancy or convenience of the moment. Cicero, the father of Roman philosophy, is sometimes an Academician, sometimes a Stoic; and, more than once, he acknowledges a conformity with Epicurus; “non sine causa igitur Epicurus ausus est dicere semper in pluribus bonis esse sapientem, quia semper sit in voluptatibus.” —Tusculan. Quæst. lib. v. Though often pure in his theology, Cicero sometimes smiles at futurity as a fiction; thus, in his Oration for Cluentius, speaking of punishments in the life to come, he says, “Quæ si falsa sunt, id quod omnes intelligunt, quid ei tandem aliud mors eripuit, præter sensum doloris?”:—though here we should, perhaps, do him but justice by agreeing with his commentator Sylvius, who remarks upon this passage, “Hæc autem dixit, ut causæ suæ subserviret.” The poet, Horace, roves like a butterfly through the schools, and now wings along the walls of the Porch, now basks among the flowers of the Garden; while Virgil, with a tone of mind strongly philosophical, has yet left us wholly uncertain as to the sect which he espoused. The balance of opinion declares him to have been an Epicurean, but the ancient author of his life asserts that he was an Academician; and we trace through his poetry the tenets of almost all the leading sects. The same kind of eclectic indifference is observable in most of the Roman writers. Thus Propertius, in the fine elegy to Cynthia, on his departure for Athens,
Incipiam, aut hortis, docte Epicure, tuis.
Though Broeckhusius here reads, “dux Epicure,” which seems to fix the poet under the banners of Epicurus. Even the Stoic Seneca, whose doctrines have been considered so orthodox, that St. Jerome has ranked him amongst the ecclesiastical writers, while Boccaccio doubts (in consideration of his supposed correspondence with St. Paul) whether Dante should have placed him in Limbo with the rest of the Pagans —even the rigid Seneca has bestowed such commendations on Epicurus, that if only those passages of his works were preserved to us, we could not hesitate, I think, in pronouncing him a confirmed Epicurean. With similar inconsistency, we find Porphyry, in his work upon abstinence, referring to Epicurus as an example of the most strict Pythagorean temperance; and Lancelotti (the author of “Farfalloni degli antici Istorici”) has been seduced by this grave reputation of Epicurus into the absurd error of associating him with Chrysippus, as a chief of the Stoic school. There is no doubt, indeed, that however the Epicurean sect might have relaxed from its original purity, the morals of its founder were as correct as those of any among the ancient philosophers; and his doctrines upon pleasure, as explained in the letter to Menœceus, are rational, amiable, and consistent with our nature. A late writer, De Sablons, in his Grands Hommes venés, expresses strong indignation against the Encyclopédistes for their just and animated praises of Epicurus, and discussing the question, “si ce philosophe étoit vertueux,” denies it upon no other authority than the calumnies collected by Plutarch, who himself confesses that, on this particular subject, he consulted only opinion and report, without pausing to investigate their truth.—Αλλα την δοξαν, ου την αληθειαν σκοπουμεν. To the factious zeal of his illiberal rivals, the Stoics, Epicurus chiefly owed these gross misrepresentations of the life and opinions of himself and his associates, which, notwithstanding the learned exertions of Gassendi, have still left an odium on the name of his philosophy; and we ought to examine the ancient accounts of this philosopher with about the same degree of cautious belief which, in reading ecclesiastical history, we yield to the invectives of the fathers against the heretics,—trusting as little to Plutarch upon a dogma of Epicurus, as we would to the vehement St. Cyril upon a tenet of Nestorius. (1801.)
The preceding remarks, I wish the reader to observe, were written at a time, when I thought the studies to which they refer much more important as well as more amusing than, I freely confess, they appear to me at present.
Lactantius asserts that all the truths of Christianity may be found dispersed through the ancient philosophical sects, and that any one who would collect these scattered fragments of orthodoxy might form a code in no respect differing from that of the Christian. “Si extitisset aliquis, qui veritatem sparsam per singulos per sectasque diffusam colligeret in unum, ac redigeret in corpus, is profecto non dissentiret a nobis.” —Inst. lib. vi. c. 7.
This bold Platonic image I have taken from a passage in Father Bouchet's letter upon the Metempsychosis, inserted in Picart's Cérém. Relig. tom. iv.
According to Pythagoras, the people of Dreams are souls collected together in the Galaxy.—Δημος δε ονειρων, κατα Πυθαγοραν, αι ψυχαι ας συναγεσθαι φησιν εις τον γαλαξιαν. —Porphyr. de Antro Nymph.
TO MRS. ---
And find thee still each day the same;
In pleasure's smile, or sorrow's tear
To me still ever kind and dear;—
To meet thee early, leave thee late,
Has been so long my bliss, my fate,
That life, without this cheering ray,
Which came, like sunshine, every day,
And all my pain, my sorrow chas'd,
Is now a lone and loveless waste.
The airs, the songs she lov'd so much?
Those songs are hush'd, those chords are still,
And so, perhaps, will every thrill
Of feeling soon be lull'd to rest,
Which late I wak'd in Anna's breast.
From memory's tablet soon may fade;
The songs, which Anna lov'd to hear,
May vanish from her heart and ear;
But friendship's voice shall ever find
An echo in that gentle mind,
Nor memory lose nor time impair
The sympathies that tremble there.
TO LADY HEATHCOTE,
ON AN OLD RING FOUND AT TUNBRIDGE-WELLS.
And Tunbridge saw, upon her Pantiles,
The merriest wight of all the kings
That ever rul'd these gay, gallant isles;
At eve, they did as we may do,
And Grammont just like Spencer talk'd,
And lovely Stewart smil'd like you.
That woman then, if man beset her,
Was rather given to saying “yes,”
Because,—as yet, she knew no better.
Where, every fear to slumber charm'd,
Lovers were all they ought to be,
And husbands not the least alarm'd.
Nor thought it much their sense beneath
To play at riddles, quips, and cranks,
And lords show'd wit, and ladies teeth.
Because, forsooth, a husband's duty
Is but to set the name and print
That give a currency to beauty.
“Like a young widow, fresh and fair?”
Because 'tis sighing to be rid
Of weeds, that “have no business there!”
And now they struck and now they parried;
And some lay in of full grown wit,
While others of a pun miscarried.
That Grammont gave this forfeit ring
For breaking grave conundrum-rites,
Or punning ill, or—some such thing:—
Through many a branch and many a bough,
From twig to twig, until it grac'd
The snowy hand that wears it now.
Oh Tunbridge! and your springs ironical,
I swear by Heathcote's eye of blue
To dedicate th' important chronicle.
Their mantles to your modern lodgers,
And Charles's loves in Heathcote live,
And Charles's bards revive in Rogers.
For ever be those fops abolish'd,
With heads as wooden as thy ware,
And, heaven knows! not half so polish'd.
The few who know the rare delight
Of reading Grammont every day,
And acting Grammont every night.
THE DEVIL AMONG THE SCHOLARS,
A FRAGMENT.
[OMITTED]
These rosy nymphs and black-eyed nuns,
With all of Cupid's wild romancing,
Led my truant brains a dancing?
Instead of studying tomes scholastic,
Ecclesiastic, or monastic,
Off I fly, careering far
In chase of Pollys, prettier far
Than any of their namesakes are,—
The Polymaths and Polyhistors,
Polyglots and all their sisters.
Sit down in quest of lore and truth,
With tomes sufficient to confound him,
Like Tohu Bohu, heap'd around him,—
Mamurra stuck to Theophrastus,
And Galen tumbling o'er Bombastus.
When lo! while all that's learn'd and wise
Absorbs the boy, he lifts his eyes,
And through the window of his study
Beholds some damsel fair and ruddy,
The angel's were on Hieronymus.
Quick fly the folios, widely scatter'd,
Old Homer's laurel'd brow is batter'd,
And Sappho, headlong sent, flies just in
The reverend eye of St. Augustin.
Raptur'd he quits each dozing sage,
Oh woman, for thy lovelier page:
Sweet book!—unlike the books of art,—
Whose errors are thy fairest part;
In whom the dear errata column
Is the best page in all the volume!
'Twas just about this devilish time,
When scarce there happen'd any frolics
That were not done by Diabolics,
A cold and loveless son of Lucifer,
Who woman scorn'd, nor saw the use of her,
A branch of Dagon's family,
(Which Dagon, whether He or She,
Is a dispute that vastly better is
Referr'd to Scaliger et cæteris,)
Finding that, in this cage of fools,
The wisest sots adorn the schools,
Took it at once his head Satanic in,
To grow a great scholastic manikin,—
Scotus John or Tom Aquinas ,
Lully, Hales Irrefragabilis,
Or any doctor of the rabble is.
In languages , the Polyglots,
Compar'd to him, were Babel sots;
He chatter'd more than ever Jew did;—
Sanhedrim and Priest included,
Priest and holy Sanhedrim
Were one-and-seventy fools to him.
Zeal so strong for gamma, delta,
That, all for Greek and learning's glory ,
He nightly tippled “Græco more,”
And never paid a bill or balance
Except upon the Grecian Kalends:—
From whence your scholars, when they want tick,
Say, to be Attic's to be on tick,
Knew as much as ever man knew.
He fought the combat syllogistic
With so much skill and art eristic,
That though you were the learned Stagyrite,
At once upon the hip he had you right.
In music, though he had no ears
Except for that amongst the spheres,
(Which most of all, as he averr'd it,
He dearly loved, 'cause no one heard it,)
Yet aptly he, at sight, could read
Each tuneful diagram in Bede,
And find, by Euclid's corollaria,
The ratios of a jig or aria.
Orpheuses and Saint Cecilias,
He own'd he thought them much surpass'd
By that redoubted Hyaloclast
Who still contriv'd by dint of throttle,
Where'er he went to crack a bottle.
On things unknown in physiology,
Wrote many a chapter to divert us,
(Like that great little man Albertus,)
Wherein he show'd the reason why,
When children first are heard to cry,
If boy the baby chance to be,
He cries O A!—if girl, O E!—
Which are, quoth he, exceeding fair hints
Respecting their first sinful parents;
“Oh Eve!” exclaimeth little madam,
While little master cries “Oh Adam!”
Our dæmon play'd his first and top tricks.
He held that sunshine passes quicker
Through wine than any other liquor;
And though he saw no great objection
To steady light and clear reflection,
He thought the aberrating rays,
Which play about a bumper's blaze,
Were by the Doctors look'd, in common, on,
As a more rare and rich phenomenon.
He wisely said that the sensorium
Is for the eyes a great emporium,
To which these noted picture-stealers
Send all they can and meet with dealers.
In many an optical proceeding
The brain, he said, show'd great good breeding;
For instance, when we ogle women
(A trick which Barbara tutor'd him in),
Although the dears are apt to get in a
Strange position on the retina,
Yet instantly the modest brain
Doth set them on their legs again!
Of all omnigenous omnisciency,
Began (as who would not begin
That had, like him, so much within?)
To let it out in books of all sorts,
Folios, quartos, large and small sorts;
Poems, so very deep and sensible
That they were quite incomprehensible
Prose, which had been at learning's Fair,
And bought up all the trumpery there,
In which the Greeks and Romans drest,
And o'er her figure swoll'n and antic
Scatter'd them all with airs so frantic,
That those, who saw what fits she had,
Declar'd unhappy Prose was mad!
Epics he wrote and scores of rebusses,
All as neat as old Turnebus's;
Eggs and altars, cyclopædias,
Grammars, prayer-books—oh! 'twere tedious,
Did I but tell thee half, to follow me:
Not the scribbling bard of Ptolemy,
No—nor the hoary Trismegistus,
(Whose writings all, thank heaven! have miss'd us,)
E'er fill'd with lumber such a wareroom
As this great “porcus literarum!”
Mamurra, a dogmatic philosopher, who never doubted about any thing, except who was his father.—“Nullâ de re unquam præterquam de patre dubitavit.” —In Vit. He was very learned—“Là-dedans, (that is, in his head when it was opened,) le Punique heurte le Persan, l'Hébreu choque l'Arabique, pour ne point parler de la mauvaise intelligence du Latin avec le Grec,” &c. —See L'Histoire de Montmaur, tom. ii. p. 91.
Bombastus was one of the names of that great scholar and quack Paracelsus.—“Philippus Bombastus latet sub splendido tegmine Aureoli Theophrasti Paracelsi,” says Stadelius de circumforaneâ Literatorum vanitate.—He used to fight the devil every night with a broadsword, to the no small terror of his pupil Oporinus, who has recorded the circumstance. (Vide Oporin. Vit. apud Christian. Gryph. Vit. Select. quorundam Eruditissimorum, &c.) Paracelsus had but a poor opinion of Galen:—“My very beard (says he in his Paragrænum) has more learning in it than either Galen or Avicenna.”
The angel, who scolded St. Jerom for reading Cicero, as Gratian tells the story in his “Concordantia discordantium Canonum,” and says, that for this reason bishops were not allowed to read the Classics: “Episcopus Gentilium libros non legat.” —Distinct. 37. But Gratian is notorious for lying —besides, angels, as the illustrious pupil of Pantenus assures us, have got no tongues. Ουχ' ως ημιν τα ωτα, ουτως εκεινοις η γλωττα: ουδ' αν οργανα τις δωη φωνης αγγελοις. —Clem. Alexand. Stromat.
The idea of the Rabbins, respecting the origin of woman, is not a little singular. They think that man was originally formed with a tail, like a monkey, but that the Deity cut off this appendage, and made woman of it. Upon this extra-ordinary supposition the following reflection is founded:—
The ninny who weds is a pitiful elf,
For he takes to his tail like an idiot again,
And thus makes a deplorable ape of himself.
Every husband remembers th' original plan,
And, knowing his wife is no more than his tail,
Why he—leaves her behind him as much as he can.
Scaliger. de Emendat. Tempor.—Dagon was thought by others to be a certain sea-monster, who came every day out of the Red Sea to teach the Syrians husbandry.—See Jaques Gaffarel (Curiosités Inouies, chap. i.), who says he thinks this story of the sea-monster “carries little show of probability with it.”
I wish it were known with any degree of certainty whether the Commentary on Boethius attributed to Thomas Aquinas be really the work of this Angelic Doctor. There are some bold assertions hazarded in it: for instance, he says that Plato kept school in a town called Academia, and that Alcibiades was a very beautiful woman whom some of Aristotle's pupils fell in love with:—“Alcibiades mulier fuit pulcherrima, quam videntes quidam discipuli Aristotelis,” &c. —See Freytag Adparat. Litterar. art. 86. tom. i.
The following compliment was paid to Laurentius Valla, upon his accurate knowledge of the Latin language:—
Non audet Pluto verba Latina loqui.
Since Val arriv'd in Pluto's shade,
His nouns and pronouns all so pat in,
Pluto himself would be afraid
To say his soul's his own, in Latin!
See for these lines the “Auctorum Censio” of Du Verdier (page 29.).
It is much to be regretted that Martin Luther, with all his talents for reforming, should yet be vulgar enough to laugh at Camerarius for writing to him in Greek. “Master Joachim (says he) has sent me some dates and some raisins, and has also written me two letters in Greek. As soon as I am recovered, I shall answer them in Turkish, that he too may have the pleasure of reading what he does not understand.” “Græca sunt, legi non possunt,” is the ignorant speech attributed to Accursius; but very unjustly:—for, far from asserting that Greek could not be read, that worthy jurisconsult upon the Law 6. D. de Bonor. Possess. expressly says, “Græcæ literæ possunt intelligi et legi.” (Vide Nov. Libror. Rarior. Collection. Fascic. IV.)—Scipio Carteromachus seems to have been of opinion that there is no salvation out of the pale of Greek Literature: “Via prima salutis Graiâ pandetur ab urbe:” and the zeal of Laurentius Rhodomannus cannot be sufficiently admired, when he exhorts his countrymen, “per gloriam Christi, per salutem patriæ, per reipublicæ decus et emolumentum,” to study the Greek language. Nor must we forget Phavorinus, the excellent Bishop of Nocera, who careless of all the usual commendations of a Christian, required no further eulogium on his tomb than “Here lieth a Greek Lexicographer.”
Ο πανυ.—The introduction of this language into English poetry has a good effect, and ought to be more universally adopted. A word or two of Greek in a stanza would serve as ballast to the most “light o' love” verses. Ausonius, among the ancients, may serve as a model:—
Αξιον ab nostris επιδευεα esse καμηναις
Or Glass-Breaker—Morhofius has given an account of this extraordinary man, in a work, published 1682,—“De vitreo scypho fracto,” &c.
Alluding to that habitual act of the judgment, by which, notwithstanding the inversion of the image upon the retina, a correct impression of the object is conveyed to the sensorium.
Under this description, I believe “the Devil among the Scholars” may be included. Yet Leibnitz found out the uses of incomprehensibility, when he was appointed secretary to a society of philosophers at Nuremberg, chiefly for his ingenuity in writing a cabalistical letter, not one word of which either they or himself could interpret. See the Eloge Historique de M. de Leibnitz, l'Europe Savante.—People in all ages have loved to be puzzled. We find Cicero thanking Atticus for having sent him a work of Serapion “ex quo (says he) quidem ego (quod inter nos liceat dicere) millesimam partem vix intelligo.” Lib. ii. epist. 4. And we know that Avicen, the learned Arabian, read Aristotle's Metaphysics forty times over for the mere pleasure of being able to inform the world that he could not comprehend one syllable throughout them. (Nicolas Massa in Vit. Avicen.)
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