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,t

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 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, &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.

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!
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!

Who was the spirit that remember'd Man
In that exciting hour?

And with a wing of Love

Brush'd off the scatter'd tear,
As o'er the spangled 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 perfumes of delight,
Enrich'd its radiant flow!

Now, with a humid kiss,

It thrill'd along the beamy wire
Of Heaven's illumin'd lyre,t

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 the rill of flame

Descending through the waste of night,
Thought 'twas a planet, whose stupendous frame
Had kindled, as it rapidly revolv'd

Around its fervid axle, and dissolv'd

Into a flood so bright!

The child of day,

Within his twilight bower,

*In the "Geoponica," lib. ii. cap. 17, there is a fable somewhat like this lescent of the nectar to earth.

+ The constellation Lyra. The astrologers attribute great virtues to this sign in the ascendant.

Lay sweetly sleeping

On the flush'd bosom of a lotus-flower ;*
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 glittering 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!
Blest be the sod, the flow'ret blest,

That caught, upon their hallow'd breast,
The nectar'd spray of Jove's perennial springs!
Less sweet the flow'ret, and less sweet the sod,
O'er which the spirit of the rainbow flings]
The magic mantle of her solar god !t

ANACREONTIC.

"SHE never look'd so kind before-
Yet why the melting smile recal?
I've seen this witchery o'er and o'er,
'Tis hollow, vain, and heartless all!"
Thus I said, and, sighing, sipp'd

The wine which she had lately tasted;
The cup, where she had lately dipp'd
Breath, so long in falsehood wasted.
I took the harp, and would have sung
As if 'twere not of her I sang;
But still the notes on Lamia hung-

On whom but Lamia could they hang?
That kiss, for which, if worlds were mine,
A world for every kiss I'd give her;

*The Egyptians represented the dawn of day by a young boy seated upon a lotus.

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.