LUCRETIUS.

LUCRETIUS.

UCILIA, wedded to Lucretius, found

Her master cold; for when the morn

ing flush

Of passion and the first embrace had died
Between them, tho' he lov'd her none the less,

Yet often when the woman heard his foot
Return from pacings in the field, and ran
To greet him with a kiss, the master took
Small notice, or austerely, for-his mind
Half buried in some weightier argument,
Or fancy-borne perhaps upon the rise
And long roll of the Hexameter-he past
To turn and ponder those three hundred scrolls

Left by the Teacher whom he held divine.
She brook'd it not; but wrathful, petulant,
Dreaming some rival, sought and found a witch
Who brew'd the philtre which had power, they
said,

To lead an errant passion home again.

And this, at times, she mingled with his drink, And this destroy'd him; for the wicked broth Confused the chemic labour of the blood,

And tickling the brute brain within the man's Made havock among those tender cells, and check'd

His power to shape: he loathed himself; and

once

After a tempest woke upon a morn

That mock'd him with returning calm, and cried :

"Storm in the night! for thrice I heard the

rain

Rushing; and once the flash of a thunderboltMethought I never saw so fierce a fork—

Struck out the streaming mountain-side, and

show'd