I'll love my little Lamp of gold,
My Lamp and I shall never part
And often, as she smiling said,

In fancy's hour, thy gentle rays
Shall guide my visionary tread

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 burning soul 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 Castilia's wave.

Then, turning to a purer lore,

We'll cull the sages' heavenly store,
From Science steal her golden clue,
And every mystic path pursue,
Where Nature, far from vulgar eyes
Through labyrinths of wonder flies!

'Tis thus my heart shall learn to know
The passing world's precarious flight,
Where all, that meets the morning glow.
Is chang'd before the fall of night!

I'll tell thee, as I trim thy fire,

'Swift, swift the tide of being runs,
And Time, who bids thy flame expire,
Will also quench yon heaven of suns
Oh! then if earth's united power
Can never chain one feathery hour;
If every print we leave to-day
To-morrow's wave shall steal away;
Who pauses, to inquire of Heaven
Why were the fleeting treasures giv'n,
The sunny days, the shady nights,
And all their brief but dear delights,
Which Heaven has made for man to use,
And man should think it guilt to lose?
Who, that has cull'd a weeping 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,
On which it dies and loves to die?

Pleasure! thou only good on earth !*
Our little hour resign'd to thee-
Oh! by my Lais' lip, 'tis worth,
The sage's immortality!

Then far be all the wisdom hence,

And all the lore, whose tame controul
Would wither joy with chill delays!
Alas! the fertile fount of sense,

At which the young, the panting soul
Drinks life and love, too soon decays!

Sweet Lamp! thou wert not form'd to shed
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;
Then shall I take my trembling way,
Unseen but to those worlds above,

And, led by thy mysterious ray
Glide to the meeting with my love.

TO MRS BL-H-D.

WRITTEN IN HER ALBUM.

THEY say that Love had once a book
(The urchin likes to copy you),
Where all who came, the pencil took,
And wrote, like us, a line or two.

"Twas Innocence, the maid divine,
Who kept this volume bright and fair,
And saw that no unhallow'd line,

Or thought profane should enter there.

* 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.

And sweetly did the pages fill

With fond device and loving lore, And every leaf she turn'd was still

More bright than that she turn'd before! Beneath the touch of Hope, how soft, How light the magic pencil ran! Till Fear would come, alas! as oft, And trembling close what Hope began. A tear or two had dropp'd from Grief, And Jealousy would, now and then, Ruffle in haste some snowy leaf,

Which Love had still to smooth again!
But, oh! there was a blooming boy,
Who often turn'd the pages o'er,
And wrote therein such words of joy,
As all who read still sigh'd for more!
And Pleasure was this spirit's name,
And though so soft his voice and look,
Yet Innocence, whene'er he came,

Would tremble for her spotless book!
And so it chanc'd, one luckless night
He let his nectar goblet fall
O'er the dear book, so pure, so white,
And sullied lines and marge and all!
And Fancy's emblems lost their glow,

And Hope's sweet lines were all defac'd, And Love himself could scarcely know What Love himself had lately trac'd! At length the urchin Pleasure fled

(For how, alas! could Pleasure stay?)
And Love, while many a tear he shed,
In blushes flung the book away!
The index now alone remains,

Of all the pages spoil'd by Pleasure,
And though it bears some honey stains,
Yet Memory counts the leaf a treasure!
And oft, they say, she scans it o'er,
And oft, by this memorial aided,
Brings back the pages now no more,
And thinks of lines that long are faded!

I know not if this tale be true,

But thus the simple facts are stated; And I refer their truth to you,

Since Love and you are near related!

THE FALL OF HEBE.

A DITHYRAMBIC ODE.

"TWAS on a day

When the immortals at their banquet lay;
The bowl

Sparkled with starry dew,

The weeping of those myriad urns of light,
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,

(Where they have bath'd them in the orient ray.
And with fine fragrance all their bosoms fill'd)
In circles flew, and melting, as they flew,
A liquid daybreak o'er the board distill'd!
All, all was luxury!

All must be luxury, where Læus 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 blooms of light,
Cull'd from the gardens of the galaxy!
Upon his bosom, Cytherea's head

Lay lovely, as when first the Syrens sung
Her beauty's dawn,

And all the curtains of the deep, undrawn,
Reveal'd her sleeping in its azure bed.
The captive deity

Languish'd upon her eyes and lip,
In chains of ecstasy!

Now on his arm,

In blushes she repos'd,

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.

And, while he looked entranced on every charm,
To shade his burning eyes her hand in dalliance stole
And now she rais'd her rosy mouth to sip
The nectar'd wave

Lyæus gave,

And from her eyelids, gently clos'd,
Shed a dissolving gleam,

Which fell, like sun-dew, in the bowl

While her bright hair, in mazy flow
Of gold descending

Along her cheek's luxurious glow,
Wav'd o'er the goblet's side,
And was reflected by its crystal tide,
Like a sweet crocus flower,

Whose sunny leaves, at evening hour
With roses of Cyrene blending,
Hang o'er the mirror of a silver stream!
The Olympian cup

Burn'd 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

Flamed o'er the goblet with a mantling heat.
Her graceful care

Would cool its heavenly fire

In gelid waves of snowy-feather'd air,
Such as the children of the pole respire,

In those enchanted lands,†

Where life is all a spring, and north winds never blow

But oh!

Sweet Hebe, what a tear,

And what a blush were thine,

When, as the breath of every Grace

Wafted thy fleet career

Along the studded sphere,

With a rich cup for Jove himself to drink,
Some star, that glitter'd in the way,

Heraclitus (Physicus) held the soul to be a spark of the stellar essence The country of the Hyperborcans. They were supposed to be placed so far north that the north wind could not affect them; they lived longe than any other mortals; passed their whole time in music and dancing, &c. 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