"Here let clouds of incense rise,"
Venus whisper'd, "to the skies."
From the chariot light I sprung,
Shrill the golden axle rung.
Kneeling by the crystal spring,
Every Naiad's charms I sing;
Echo wafts their praises wide,
But chief the Naiads of the tide.
Goddess of the stream attend!
O'er thy wave I suppliant bend;
Grant thy spring may ever be,
Dear to Venus, and to me.
As I bent the waves to kiss,
Murmurs rise of softer bliss ;
For the fountain's liquid face,
I feel the timid nymph's embrace;
Glow and pant my labouring veins,
As her ivory arms she strains;
While the melting kiss she sips,
The soul sits quivering on my lips.
Sudden from our watery bed,
Venus slily smiling fled;
With her sought the shady grove,
The smiling, dimpling God of Love:
Loud through all its dusky bounds,
Hylas! a second Hylas," sounds;
While the vision fled in air,
And left the Bard to lone despair.
By every smiling God above,
By the maid you dearest love:
Drummond! to all the Muses dear,
Lend, to thy friend, thy partial ear;
Thou gifted Bard, canst best explain,
Each dream that haunts the poet's brain.
O THOU! with soul to Nature dead,
Who lov'st in Folly's court to tread;
To mingle with her worthless train,
The light, the dissolute, the vain ;
To hear the darkly-whisper'd tale,
That turns the cheek of Candour pale;
The flimsy talk, the clumsy jest,
By wit or sense alike unblest;
Or join the drunkard's frantic rite,
That shocks the sober ear of Night;
Far hence! nor dare with footsteps rude
Within my sacred bounds intrude!
Retire! nor idly linger here,
Where nought can please thine eye or ear.
In vain, for thee a thousand blooms
Breathe more than Araby's perfumes;
In vain, the wildly warbling throng
Awake of love and peace the song ;
In vain, the limpid current flows,
The life-reviving zephyr blows,
The swain his toil with mirth beguiles,
And earth and heaven are drest in smiles!
'All, all by thee are coldly past:
Thou hear'st no music in the blast;
Seest nought in all the landscape yields,
The pomp of groves and fertile fields!
Nor even can other's bliss impart
A charm to glad thy callous heart.
Go then, and join the madding croud,
Bless none, think little, and talk loud:
There may'st thou reign and revel❜ * free,
But Peace and Virtue dwell with me!
FROM THE SPANISH OF BARTOLOME LEONARDO.
FABIUS, to think that God hath in the lines
Of the right hand disclos'd the things to come,
And in the wrinkles of the skin pourtray'd,
As in a map, the way of human life;
This is to follow with the multitude
Error or Ignorance, their common guides;
Yet surely I allow that God has plac'd
Our fate in our own hands, or evil or good,
Even as we make it: tell me, Fabius,
Art not a king thyself? when envying not
The lot of kings, no idle wish disturbs
Thy quiet life; when, a self-govern'd man,
No laws exist to thee; and when no change,
With which the will of Heaven may visit thee,
Can break the even calmness of thy soul."
* Reigns here and revels. MILTON.
ANNA AT THE TOMB OF HENRY.
SoD that wraps my Henry's clay,
O lie lightly on his breast! And ye winds that bring decay,
Spare the flowers with which 'tis drest.
So that, at the close of eve,
Fairy bands here oft may come,
Come, and their gay circles weave
Round my lover's grassy tomb.
Sportive elves! O here repair!
And I'll join your dance, and crave
Leave to bind your golden hair,
With the pride of Henry's grave.
Who could with my lover vye P
O his eye was brighter far,
Than the Morning's orient eye,
Than the Evening's leading star.
Form'd with manners mild to raise,
In the female breast love's smart,
Form'd to melt it too with ease,
Soon he won my virgin heart.
O! how happy have I been,
In the bosom of this grove,
By the pale moon's silver sheen,
Often wandering with my love!
Now, within the moon-light glade,
Now, even now, he should appear;
For he loves me still, tho' dead,
And when Anna calls will hear.
Wake, altho' thy sleep be sound,
And tho' pleasant be thy dreams,
Wake, and see how far around,
Cynthia's yellow radiance streams!
Wake, and hear the nightingale,
Her soft strains in sorrow steep,
Whilst, in pity to her tale,
Round her bower the night-winds weep.
Still, when round our walks so fair, Seraphs smite their lyres, and fill With soft melody the air;
And the zephyr steals the breath
Of the evening primrose flower,
That bestrews the lover's path,
That begems the lover's bower.
But if, pierc'd by Sorrow's dart,
Thou hast felt thy reason fly,
And in bitterness of heart,
Laid thee down, my love, to die;
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