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Plato—according to the most approved authority—died on the 17th of May, in the year 347 before Christ, and on his birthday, having exactly completed his eighty-first year. He had accepted an invitation—which he could not well decline—a marriage festival, and appeared in good health; though, with his accustomed temperance, he ate only a few olives. But while a friend was yet congratulating him on his healthful looks and flow of spirits, he was seized with sudden illness, and fell senseless into the arms of his fellow guest. He was removed to his home, and soon expired; while the piece of writing on which he had been engaged till he went out lay near him on a table in the same room, waiting the master's hand to finish it. His tomb was in the garden of his country-house, and near the academy.

The modern traveller finds the whole of that ancient classic ground overspread with a grove of olive-trees. A Rose, plucked from the site of Plato's Garden, and presented to the writer, is the subject of the following lines.

All hail! my little floral Greek,
With infant form, and soul antique,
In charms and story thus unique,
On my Atlantic shore!
'T was classic ground that nourished thee
Beyond the old Ægean Sea,
To come all redolent to me
Of ancient song and lore.

Thy native spot, afar renowned,
With twice a thousand years of sound
Hath Fama sung the world around!
Yet thou, so young and fair,
From out thine academic bower,
Dost come, a modest, blushing flower,
With lowly mien, but mystic power,
And lofty import bear.

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With glowing cheek, and mantle green,
From home and kindred transmarine,—
While roaring ocean rolls between
Thy native clime and thee,—
Thou com'st to breathe upon my lyre,
As if thou 'dst fain the soul inspire,—
The voice, the music, and the fire
Of Attic minstrelsy!

In sooth a precious Rose art thou!
Whilst o'er thy distant, plundered bough
Athenæ's air is wailing now
Her ancient glory gone,
From every silken fold of thine
I see that ancient glory shine,
And drink philosophy divine
From thy pure bosom drawn.

Thy parent root is in the sod
Where Plato oft, while musing, trod,
With thoughts in quest of Truth and God,
That groped creation through.
And on thy tender infant head,
When peering from thine earthy bed,
The same bright stars their lustre shed
That kindled Plato's view.

Where this stupendous mundane scheme
Was long to him the glorious theme
Of many a pious pagan dream
That claimed a sleepless hour,
Didst thou spring up, serene and fair,
Adoring his Creator there,
With odors poured like praise and prayer
To one Almighty Power!

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And now, my Rosa, let me own,
In confidence, to thee alone,
A strange half-wish I 've sometimes known,
Which thou wilt ne'er betray,—
That Plato might be here again,
And I behold him once, as when
He taught and walked with living men,
In his meridian day.

I fain would see his master-mind
By Truth illumed,—its traits defined,—
Its grandeur, wealth, and powers combined
In Truth's effulgent cause.
O, had his being, so sublime,
Occurred but in this latter time,
What glorious heights 't were his to climb
By Heaven's and Nature's laws!

Imbued in heart with Gospel grace,
What joy had lit his placid face,
The perfect workmanship to trace
In one small floral cup!
For there his soul had quickly seen,
Without a cloud to intervene,
The Hand whereon the pillars lean
That hold creation up.

Yet if the teacher wisely strove,
For Wisdom's self, to win the love
Of all mankind to her, above
Aught else that time could yield,
Why should I wish him here to-day,
Where Truth is held, so oft, to play
The game of throwing souls away,
And thousands throng the field?

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He never dreamed of such a sight
As legatees to life and light
Self-hoodwinked!—choosing moral night
Where thorn and Upas grow!
Nor could the shades of paganism
Have blurred his mental eye and prism
With shapes and clouds of vapor-ism
Like those our day can show.

But while I turn my eye from them,
To study thee, my Attic gem,—
So meet in May-Queen's diadem
The frontal flower to shine,—
Imagination, like the bee
That sucks Hymettus' thyme, from the
Imbibes a honey clear and free,
And pure delight is mine.

To where thy finished structure grew
Conveyed in vision, thus, I view
That ancient school on earth anew,
Where, fired with burning thought,
The noble son of Socrates,
Superb, in calm, pedestrian ease,
Beneath the green, imbowering trees,
His golden precepts taught.

Could Plato to a wedding go?
His chronicler assures me so!
Yet farther doth the record show,
That, ere the feast was done,
No longer he the scene could bide;
But, when the nuptial knot was tied,
The hoary sage went home, and died
Before another sun.

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Sweet offspring of the month of flowers,
With zephyrs bland, and spicy bowers,—
With golden rays, and silver showers,—
The same of Plato's birth;
He was, like thee, a child of May!
And on his flowery natal day
The soul of Plato passed away,
And left his form to earth.

But does not oft his spirit love,
In May-time still, unseen, to rove
All peaceful through the olive-grove
That fitly holds the place
So long his home? And at the tree
That put thee forth, O, did not he
Repeat his smile benign, to be
The brightness of thy face?

For in his garden was his tomb,
Where, 'mid the verdure and the bloom,
He left his ashes to assume
The form that Nature chose.
And now, if matter loseth naught,
By spirit-hands, through ages wrought,
May not his elements be brought
In my Platonic Rose?