Page images
PDF
EPUB

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

panses to enquire of Heaven
Why were the fleeting treasures given,
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!!

One little hour resign'd to theeOh! by my Lais' lip, 'tis worth The sage's immortality!

Then far be all the wisdom hence,

And all the lore, whose tame control 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 pageWhate'er my blushing Lais said

Of thoughtfel lore and studies sage, 'T was mockery all-her glance of joy Told me thy dearest, best employ !2

And, soon as night shall close the eve

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 pillow of my love. Calm be her sleep, the gentle dear! Nor let her dream of bliss so near,

1 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.

2 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 plos sublimes, et ce qui est bien au-dessus. qui pourra goûter les mêmes plaisirs.-See his Venus Physique. This appears to be one of the efforts at Fontenelle's gallantry of manner, for which the learned President is so well ridiculed in the Akakia of VOLTAIRE.

MAUFERTUIS may be thought to have borrowed from the ancient ARISTIPPUS that indiscriminate theory of pleasures which he has set forth in his Essai de Philosophie Morale, and for which he was so very justly condemned, ARISTIFFUS, according to LAERTIUS, held un dia dei Te ádovav úðavns, which irrational sentiment has been adopted by MACPERILIC: «Tant qu'on ne considère que l'état présent, tous les plaisirs sout du même genre,s etc. etc.

Till o'er her check she thrilling feel My sighs of fire in murmurs steal, And I shall lift the locks that flow Unbraided o'er her lids of snow, And softly kiss those sealed eyes, And wake her into sweet surprise!

Or if she dream, oh! let her dream

Of those delights we both have known, And felt so truly, that they seem

Form'd to be felt by us alone!
And I shall mark her kindling cheek,
Shall see her bosom warmly move,
And hear her faintly, lowly speak

The murmur'd sounds so dear to love'

Oh! I shall gaze till even the sigh That wafts her very soul be nigh, And, when the nymph is all but blest, Sink in her arms and share the rest! Sweet Lais! what an age of bliss

In that one moment waits for me! Oh sages!— think on joy like this, And where's your boast of apathy?

TO MRS. BL-H-D.

WRITTEN IN HER ALBUM.

Τούτο δε τι εστι το πότον; πλανή, έφη. Cebetis Tabula.

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

'T was Innocence, the maid divine, Who kept this volume bright and fair,

And saw that no unhallow'd line,

Or thought profane, should enter there.

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!

[blocks in formation]

Where blest he wooes some black Aspasia's grace, And dreams of freedom in his slave's embrace!1

In fancy now beneath the twilight gloom,
Come, let me lead thee o'er this modern Rome!
Where tribunes rule, where dusky Davi bow,
And what was Goose-Creek once is Tiber now!3——
This famed metropolis, where Fancy sees
Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees;
Which travelling fools and gazetteers adorn
With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn,
Though nought but wood and******** they see,
Where streets should run, and sages ought to be!

And look, how soft in yonder radiant wave,
The dying sun prepares his golden grave!—
Oh great Potowmac! oh you banks of shade!
You mighty scenes, in Nature's morning made,
While still, in rich magnificence of prime,
She pour'd her wonders, lavishly sublime,
Nor yet had learned to stoop, with humbler care,
From grand to soft, from wonderful to fair!
Say, were your towering hills, your boundless floods,
Your rich savannas and majestic woods,
Where bards should meditate and heroes rove,
And woman charm and man deserve her love!
Oh! was a world so bright but born to grace
Its own half-organized, half-minded race

Of weak barbarians, swarming o'er its breast,
Like vermin gender'd on the lion's crest?

The black Aspasia, of the present ********* of the United States, inter Avernales haud ignotissima nymphas, has given rise to much pleasantry among the anti-democrat wits in America.

On the original location of the ground now allotted for the seat of the Federal City (says Mr. WELD), the identical spot on which the capitel now stands was called Rome. This anecdote is related by many as a certain prognostic of the future magnificence of this city, which is to be, as it were, a second Rome.-WELD's Travels, letter iv.

A little stream runs through the city, which, with intolerable affectation, they have styled the Tiber. It was originally called Goose-Creek.

4. To be under the necessity of going through a deep wood for one or two miles, perhaps, in order to see a next-door neighbour and in the same city, is a curious, and I believe a novel, circumstance.— WELD, letter iv.

The Federal City (if it must be called a city) has not been much increased since Mr Weld visited it. Most of the public buildings which were then in some degree of forwardness, have been since utterly suspended. The Hotel is already a ruin; a great part of its roof has fallen in, and the rooms are left to be occupied gratuitously by the miserable Scotch and Irish emigrants. The President's hous, a very noble structure, is by no means suited to the philosophical humility of its present possessor, who inhabits but a corner of the mansion himself, and abandons the rest to a state of uncleanly desolation, which those who are not philosophers cannot look at without regret. This grand edifice is encircled by a very rude pale, through which a common rustic stile introduces the visitors of the first man in America. With respect to all that is within the house, I shall imitate the prudent forbearance of Herodotus, and say. τα δε εν απορρητα. The private buildings exhibit the same characteristic display of arropant speculation and premature ruin, and the few ranges of houses which were begun some years ago, have remained so long waste and unfinished, that they are now for the most part dilapidated.

The picture which Berrow and DE PAUw have drawn of the American Indian, though very humiliating, is, as far as I can judge, much more correct than the flattering representations which Mr JEPPERSON has given us. See the Notes on Virginia, where this gentleman endeavours to disprove in general the opinion maintained so strongly by some philosophers, that nature (as Mr JEFFERSON expresses it) belittles her productions in the western world. M. DE PAL w attributes the imperfections of animal life in America to the ravages of a very recent deluge, from whose effects upon its soil and atmosphere it has not yet sufficiently recovered.-See his Recherches sur les Americains, part. i. tom. i. p. 102.

Were none but brutes to call that soil their home,
Where none but demi-gods should dare to roam?
Or, worse, thou mighty world! oh! doubly worse,
Did Heaven design thy lordly land to nurse
The motley dregs of every distant clime,
Each blast of anarchy and taint of crime
Which Europe shakes from her perturbed sphere,
In full malignity to rankle here?

But hush'-observe that little mount of pines,
Where the breeze murmurs and the fire-fly shines,
There let thy fancy raise, in bold relief,
The sculptured image of that veteran chief, '
Who lost the rebel's in the hero's name,
And stepp'd o'er prostrate loyalty to fame;
Beneath whose sword Columbia's patriot train

Cast off their monarch, that their mob might reign!

How shall we rank thee upon Glory's page?
Thou more than soldier and just less than sage!
Too form'd for peace to act a conqueror's part,
Too train'd in camps to learn a statesman's art,'
Nature design'd thee for a hero's mould,
But, ere she cast thee, let the stuff grow cold!

While warmer souls command, nay, make their fate,
Thy fate made thee and forced thee to be great.
Yet Fortune, who so oft, so blindly sheds
Her brightest halo round the weakest heads,
Found thee undazzled, tranquil as before,
Proud to be useful, scorning to be more;
Less prompt at glory's than at duty's claim,-
Renown the meed, but self-applause the aim;
All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee,
Far less, than all thou hast forborne to be!

Now turn thine eye where faint the moonlight falls
On yonder dome-and in those princely halls,
If thou canst hate, as, oh! that soul must hate,
Which loves the virtuous and reveres the great,
If thou canst loathe and execrate with me
That Gallic garbage of philosophy,
That nauseous slaver of these frantic times,
With which false liberty dilutes her crimes!
If thou hast got, within thy free-born breast,
One pulse that beats more proudly than the rest,
With honest scorn for that inglorious soul
Which creeps and winds beneath a mob's control,
Which courts the rabble's smile, the rabble's nod,
And makes, like Egypt, every beast its god!
There, in those walls-but, burning tongue, forbear!
Rank must be reverenced, even the rank that's there:
So here I pause--and now, my Hume! we part;
But oh! full oft in magie dreams of heart,

Thus let us meet, and mingle converse dear
By Thames at home, or by Potowmac here!

[blocks in formation]

Oh Nature! though blessed and bright are thy rays,
O'er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown,

O'er Lake and marsh, through fevers and through fogs, Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays

Midst bears and vankees, democrats and frogs,
Thy foot shall follow me, thy heart and eyes
With me shall wonder, and with me despise!?

↑ On a small hill near the capitol, there is to be an equestrian statue of General Washington.

In the ferment which the French resolution excited among the democrats of America, and the 1 centicus sympathy with which they shared in the wildest excesses of jacobinism, we may find one source of that sularity of vice, that hostilts to all the graces of life, which distinguishes the present de merues of the United States, and has

In a smile from the heart that is dearly our own!

in Anterica.

become indeed to generally the characteristic of their countrymen
But there is another cause of the corruption of private morals, which,
encouraged it is by the government, and identified with the interests
of the community, seems to threaten the decay of all honest principle
I allude to those fraudulent violations of neutrality te
which they are indebted for the most lucrative part of their commerce,
and by which they have so long infringed and counteracted the
time rights and advantages of this country. This unwarrantable trase
is necessarily abetted by such a system of collusion, impesture, and
perjury, as cannot fail to spread rapid contamination around is

mark

Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain
Unblest by the smile he had languish'd to meet;
Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again,
Till the threshold of home had been kiss'd by his feet!

But the lays of his boyhood had stolen to their ear, And they loved what they knew of so humble a name, And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear, That they found in his heart something sweeter than fame!

Nor did woman-oh woman! whose form and whose soul
Are the spell and the light of each path we pursue;
Whether sunn'd in the tropics or chill'd at the pole,
If woman be there, there is happiness too!

Nor did she her enamouring magic deny,

That magic his heart had relinquish'd so long, Like eyes he had loved was her eloquent eye,

Like them did it soften and weep at his song.

Oh! blest be the tear, and in memory oft

May its sparkle be shed o'er his wandering dream! Oh! blest be that eye, and may passion as soft,

As free from a pang, ever mellow its beam!

The stranger is gone-but he will not forget,
When at home he shall talk of the toil he has known,
To tell, with a sigh, what endearments he met,

As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone!

THE FALL OF HEBE.

A DITHYRAMBIC ODE.

'T was on a day

When the immortals at their banquet lay;

Though I call this a Dithyrambie 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 koown. According to M. BERETTE, a licentions irregularity of metre, an extravagant research of thought and expression, and a rude embarrassed construction, are among its most distinguishing features. He adds, « Ces caractères des dityrambes se font sentir à ceux qui lisent attentivement les Odes de Pindare..-Mémoires de l'Acad. vol. 1, p. 306. And the same opinion may be collected from Scamir's Dissertation upon the subject. But I think, 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 beng désordre.. CHIARRERA, who has been styled the Pindar of Italy, and from whom all its poetry upon the Greek model was called Chiabreresco (as CanSCIMBENI informs us, lib. i. cap. 12), has given, amongst his Vendemmie, a Dithyrambic, all' uso de' Greci it is full of those compound epithets which, we are told, were a chief cha

racter of the style (σύνθετους δε λέξεις εποίουν. SUID. Διθυραμβοδίδ.): such as

[blocks in formation]

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,
Stored the rich fluid of ethereal soul!'
Around,

Soft odorous clouds, that upward wing their flight
From eastern isles

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

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 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 ecstacy!

Now in his arm,

In blushes she reposed,

And, while her zone resign'd its every charm,

To shade his burning eyes her hand in dalliance stole,
And now she raised her rosy mouth to sip
The nectar'd wave

[blocks in formation]

This is a Platonic fancy; the philosopher supposes, in his Timau 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 eup, though the ingredients be mingled were not quite so pure as for the former, and having refined the mixture with a little of his own essence, he istributed it among the stars, which served as reservoirs of the fluid. Ταυτ' είτε και παλιν επι τον πρότερον κρατήρα εν ᾧ την του παντος ψυχην κεράνους έμιση 4, κ. τ. λ.

We learn from THEOPHRASTes, that the roses of Cyrene were

particularly fragrant. Ευοσμοτατα τα δε τα εν Κυρήνη ρόδα.

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 2

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,

Raising its amorous head
To kiss so exquisite a tread,
Check'd thy impatient pace!
And all Heaven's host of eyes
Saw those luxuriant beauties sink

In lapse of loveliness, along the azure skies!3
Upon whose starry plain they lay,
Like a young blossom on our meads of gold,
Shed from a vernal thorn

Amid the liquid sparkles of the morn!
Or, as in temples of the Paphian shade,
The myrtled votaries of the queen behold
An image of their rosy idol, laid
Upon a diamond shrine!

The wanton wind,

Which had pursued the flying fair,
And sweetly twined

Its spirit with the breathing rings

Of her ambrosial hair,

Soar'd as she fell, and on its ruffling wings

(Oh wanton wind!)

1 Heraclitus (Physicus) held the soul to be a spark of the stellar essence. • Scintilla stellaris essentia.-MACROBIUS, in Somn. Scip. lib. i. cap. 14.

The country of the Hyperboreans; they 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, etc. etc. 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 HeaopoTUS and PLINY, this idea was suggested by the quantity of snow which was observed to fall in these regions, thus the former : Τα ὧν πτερα εικάζοντας την χιονα τους Σκύθας τε και τους περιοίκους δοκεω λέγειν. - Ηεκουοr. lib. iv. cap. 31. Orty tells the fable othersise 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! 31 believe it is Servius 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 lubricam minus caute incedens, cecidisset, revolutisque vestibuss-in short, she fell in a very awkward manner, and though (as the Encyclopedistes think) se would have amused Jove at any other time, yet, as he happened to be out of temper on that day, the poor girl was dismissed from her employment.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Fell glowing through the spheres,
While all around, new tints of bliss,

New perfumes of delight,
Enrich'd its radiant flow!

Now, with a humid kiss,

It thrill'd along the beamy wire

Of heaven's illumined lyre,3
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 faun'd
By all their sighs, meandering stole!
They who, from Atlas' height,
Beheld the rill of flame

Descending through the waste of night,
Thought 't was a planet whose stupendous frame
Had kindled as it rapidly revolved
Around its fervid axle, and dissolved
Into a flood so bright!

The child of day,

Within his twilight bower,
Lay sweetly sleeping

On the flush'd bosom of a lotos-flower;4

1 The arcane symbols of this ceremony were deposited in the rista, 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, asinas portat mysteria,See the Divine Legation, book ií. sect. 4.

2 In the Geoponica, lib. i. cap. 17. there is a fable somewhat like this descent of the nectar to earth. Ev oupavce TORT SET ενώ χουμένων, και του νεκταρος πολλού παρακειμένου, ανασκίρτησαν χορεία του Έρωτα και συσπείσαι το πτερα του κρατήρος την βάσιν, και περιτρέψαι μετ αυτόν το δε νεκταρ εις την γην εκχυθεν, κ. τ. λ. —

See Autor. de Re Rust. edit, Cantab, 1704.

The constellation Lyra. The astrologers attribute great victimes to this sign in ascendenti, which are enumerated by PONTANO, 18 h Urania:

➖➖➖➖ Ecce novem cum pectine chordas
Fmodulans, mulcetque novo vaga sidera canto,
Quo apie nascentum anima concordia ducunt
Pectora, etc.

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »