ΤΟ ON SEEING HER WITH A WHITE VEIL AND A RICH GIRDLE. Μαργαριται δηλουσι δακρύων ῥουν. Ap. NICEPHOR. in Oneirocrition PUT off the vestal veil, nor, oh! Put off the fatal zone you wear; The shining pearls around it Are tears, that fell from Virtue there, The hour when Love unbound it. WRITTEN IN THE BLANK LEAF OF A LADY'S COMMONPLACE BOOK. HERE is one leaf reserved for me, From all thy sweet memorials free; And here my simple song might tell The feelings thou must guess so well. But could I thus, within thy mind, One little vacant corner find, Where no impression yet is seen, Where no memorial yet hath been, Oh! it should be my sweetest care To write my name forever there! ΤΟ MRS. BL 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; And daily 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, And trembling close what Hope began. A tear or two had dropp'd from Grief, 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. For, oft a Bacchant cup he bore, With earth's sweet nectar sparkling bright; And much she fear'd lest, mantling o'er, Some drops should on the pages light. And so it chanced, one luckless night, And sullied lines and marge and all! In vain now, touch'd with shame, he tried The leaves grew darker every day. And Fancy's sketches lost their hue, And Hope's sweet lines were all effaced, And Love himself now scarcely knew What Love himself so lately traced. At length the urchin Pleasure fled, (For how, alas! could Pleasure stay?) And Love, while many a tear he shed, Reluctant flung the book away. The index now alone remains, Of all the pages spoil'd by Pleasure, And though it bears some earthy stains, Yet Memory counts the leaf a treasure. And oft, they say, she scans it o'er, 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. TO CARA, AFTER AN INTERVAL OF ABSENCE. CONCEAL'D within the shady wood A mother left her sleeping child, And flew, to cull her rustic food, The fruitage of the forest wild. But storms upon her pathway rise, Of him she left so sweetly sleeping. She hopes, she fears; a light is seen, And gentler blows the night wind's breath; Yet no 'tis gone-the storms are keen, The infant may be chill'd to death! Perhaps, ev'n now, in darkness shrouded, Thus, Cara, at our last farewell, When, fearful ev'n thy hand to touch, I mutely ask'd those eyes to tell If parting pain'd thee half so much : I thought, and, oh; forgive the thought, For none was e'er by love inspired Whom fancy had not also taught To hope the bliss his soul desired. Yes, I did think, in Cara's mind, One feeling which I call'd my own. Oh blest! though out in fancy blest, And, many an hour, beguiled by pleasure, I ne'er forgot the new-born treasure, Perhaps, indifference has not chill'd it, Haply, it yet a throb may giveYet, no-perhaps, a doubt has kill'd it; Say, dearest-does the feeling live? ΤΟ CARA, ON THE DAWNING OF A NEW YEAR'S DAY WHEN midnight came to close the year, We sigh'd to think it thus should take The hours it gave us-hours as dear As sympathy and love could make Their blessed moments,-every sun Saw us, my love, more closely one. But, Cara, when the dawn was nigh Which came a new year's light to shed, That smile we caught from eye to eye Told us, those moments were not fled: Oh, no, we felt, some future sun Should see us still more closely one. Thus may we ever, side by side, That Hope shall shed on scenes before us! то 1801. To be the theme of every hour To be remember'd oft and well All that may yet win smiles from thee- Of a lone, weary wanderer's heart; Can give thee one faint gleam of joy, Ev'n more than Love should dare to say,- The business of my life shall be, Forever to remember thee. And though that heart be dead to mine, Since Love is life and wakes not thine, I'll take thy image, as the form Of one whom Love had fail'd to warm, Which, though it yield no answering thrill, THE GENIUS OF HARMONY, AN IRREGULAR ODE. Ad harmoniam canere mundum. THERE lies a shell beneath the waves, Such as of old Echoed the breath that warbling sea-maids breathed; This magic shell, From the white bosom of a syren fell, As once she wander'd by the tide that laves 1 In the "Histoire Naturelle des Antilles," there is an account of some curious shells, found at Curaçon, on the back of which were lines, filled with musical characters so distinet and perfect, that the writer assures us a very charming trio was sung from one of them. "On le nomme musical, parcequ'il porte sur le dos des lignes noirâtres pleines de notes, qui ont une espèce de clé pour les mettre en chant, de sorte que l'on diroit qu'il ne manque que la lettre à cette tablature naturelle. Ce curieux gentilhomme (M. du Montel) rapporte qu'il en a vû qui avoient cinq lignes, une clé, et des notes, qui fermoient un accord parfait. Quelqu'un y avoit ajouté la lettre, que la nature avoit oubliée, et la faisoit chanter en forme de trio, dont l'air étoit fort agréable."—Chap. xix. art. 11. The author adds, a poet might imagine that these shells were used by the syrens at their concerts. * According to Cicero, and his commentator, Macrobius. the lunar tone is the gravest and faintest on the planetary heptachord. "Quam ob causam summus ille cœli stellifer cursus, cujus conversio est concitatior, acuto et excitato movetur sono; gravissimo autem hic lunaris atque infimus." -Somn. Scip. Because, says Macrobius, "spiritu ut in extremitate languescente jam volvitur, et propter angustias quibus penultimus orbis arctatur impetu leniore convertitur." -In Somn. Scip., lib. ii. cap. 4. In their musical arrangement of the heavenly bodies, the ancient writers are not very intelligible. See Ptolem., lib. iii. Leone Hebreo, in pursuing the idea of Aristotle, that the heavens are animal, attributes their harmony to perfect and reciprocal love. "Non pero manca fra loro il perfetto et reciproco amore: la causa principale, che ne mostra il loro Of thrilling numbers to thy soul be dear, That, through the circle of creation's zone, • Murmuring o'er beds of pearl: From the rich sigh Of the sun's arrow through an evening sky, Thou'lt wondering own this universe divine That I respire in all and all in me, One mighty mingled soul of boundless harmony. Welcome, welcome, mystic shell! O'er the cold bosom of the ocean wept,' נו amore, è la lor amicitia armonica et la concordanza, che perpetuamente si trova in loro."-Dialog. ii. di Amore, p. 58. This reciprico amore" of Leone is the piλorns of the ancient Empedocles, who seems, in his Love and Hate of the Elements, to have given a glimpse of the principles of attraction and repulsion. See the fragment to which I allude in Laertius, Αλλοτε μεν φιλότητι, συνερχόμεν', κ. τ. λ., lib. viii. cap. 2, n. 12. * Leucippus, the atomist, imagined a kind of vortices in the heavens, which he borrowed from Anaxagoras, and possibly suggested to Descartes. Heraclides, upon the allegories of Homer, conjectures that the idea of the harmony of the spheres originated with this poet, who, in representing the solar beams as arrows, supposes them to emit a peculiar sound in the air. • In the account of Africa which D'Ablancourt has translated, there is mention of a tree in that country, whose branches when shaken by the hand produce very sweet sounds. "Le même auteur (Abenzėgar) dit, qu'il y a un certain arbre, qui produit des gaules comme d'oster, et qu en les prenant à la main et les branlant, elles font une espèce d'harmonie fort agréable," &c. &c.-L'Afrique de Marmol. Alluding to the extinction, or at least the disappearance, of some of those fixed stars, which we are taught to consider as suns, attended each by its system. Descartes thought that our earth might formerly have been a sun, which became obscured by a thick incrustation over its surface. This probably suggested the idea of a central fire. 7 Porphyry says, that Pythagoras held the sea to be a tear, Tny Saλarrav pev ekadei eivai daxpvov, (De Vitâ ;) and some 134 Since thy aërial spell Now blest I'll fly With the bright treasure to my choral sky, The winged chariot of some blissful soul:"" Oh son of earth, what dreams shall rise for thee! Thou'lt see a streamlet run, Which I've imbued with breathing melody; There, by that wondrous stream, And I will send thee such a godlike dream, Watch'd the first flowing of that sacred fount, one else, if I mistake not, has added the planet Saturn as the source of it. Empedocles, with similar affectation, called the sea "the sweat of the earth :" idpwra rns yns. See Rittershusius upon Porphyry, Num. 41. 1 The system of the harmonized orbs was styled by the ancients the Great Lyre of Orpheus, for which Lucian thus accounts:ἡ δε Λύρη ἑπταμιτος εούσα την των κινουμένων αστρων ἁρμονιαν συνεβάλλετο, κ. τ. λ. in Astrolog. 2. Διειλε ψυχάς ισάριθμους τοις άστροις, ένειμε 9' έκαστην προς έκαστον, και εμβιβάσας 'ΩΣ ΕΙΣ ΟΧΗΜΑ. — Distributing the souls severally among the stars, and mounting each soul upon a star as on its chariot."-Plato, Timaus. This musical river is mentioned in the romance of Achilles Tatius. Επει ποταμού . . ην δε ακούσαι θέλης του bdaros λaλovvros. The Latin version, in supplying the hiatus which is in the original, has placed the river in Hispania. "In Hispaniâ quoque fluvius est, quem primo aspectu," &c. &c. 4 These two lines are translated from the words of Achilles Tatius. Εαν γαρ ολιγος ανεμος εις τας δίνας έμπεση, το μεν ὕδωρ ὡς χορδη κρούεται, το δε πνεύμα του ύδατος πλήκτρον γίνεται, το ρευμα δε ὡς κιθαρα λαλει.-Lib. ii. 5 Orpheus. • They called his lyre αρχαιότροπον ἑπταχορδον Ορφεως. See a curious work by a professor of Greek at Venice, entitled "Hebdomades, sive septem de septenario libri."-Lib. iv. cap. 3, p. 177. 7 Eratosthenes, in mentioning the extreme veneration of Orpheus for Apollo, says that he was accustomed to go to the Pangwan mountain at daybreak, and there wait the rising of the sun, that he might be the first to hail its beams. Επεγειρόμενος σε της νυκτος, κατά την έωθινην επί το όρος το καλούμενον Παγγαίον, προσέμενε τας ανατολας, ίνα ίδη τον Ήλιον πρωτον.-Καταστερισμ. 24. From wreaths of pleasure and from bonds of pain, By the great diadem that twines my hair, In a soft iris of harmonious light, Oh, mortal! such shall be thy radiant dreams. 8 There are some verses of Orpheus preserved to us, which contain sublime ideas of the unity and magnificence of the Deity. For instance, those which Justin Martyr has produced: Ούτος μεν χαλκείον ες ουρανον εστήρικται Ad Græc. Cohortat. the fabrications, which were frequent in the early times of It is thought by some that these are to be reckoned among Christianity. Still, it appears doubtful to whom they are to be attributed, being too pious for the Pagans, and too poetical for the Fathers. In one of the Hymns of Orpheus, he attributes a figured stamped a variety of forms upon the universe. seal to Apollo, with which he imagines that deity to have 10 Alluding to the cave near Samos, where Pythagoras devoted the greater part of his days and nights to meditation and the mysteries of his philosophy. Iamblich. de Vit. This, as Holstenius remarks, was in imitation of the Magi. 11 The tetractys, or sacred number of the Pythagoreans, on which they solemnly swore, and which they called mayar acraov dvoɛws, "the fountain of perennial nature." Lucian Sale of Philosophers. has ridiculed this religious arithmetic very cleverly in his 12 This diadem is intended to represent the analogy be tween the notes of music and the prismatic colors. We find in Plutarch a vague intimation of this kindred harmony in colors and sounds.-Οψις τε και ακοή, μετά φωνης τε και φωτος την ἁρμονιαν επιφαινουσι.—De Musica. rowed, says, in a letter upon music to Boetius, "Ut diadema Cassiodorus, whose idea I may be supposed to have borblanditur auditui.” This is indeed the only tolerable thought oculis, varia luce gemmarum, sic eythara diversitate soni, in the letter.-Lib. ii. Variar. |