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FRAGMENT

OF

A MYTHOLOGICAL HYMN TO LOVE.

BLEST infant of eternity!

Before the day-star learn'd to move, In pomp of fire, along his grand career, Glancing the beamy shafts of light From his rich quiver to the farthest sphere,

Thou wert alone, oh Love!

Nestling beneath the wings of ancient Night, Whose horrors seem'd to smile in shadowing thee.

No form of beauty sooth'd thine eye,

As through the dim expanse it wander'd wide; No kindred spirit caught thy sigh,

As o'er the watery waste it ling'ring died.

Unfelt the pulse, unknown the power,

That latent in his heart was sleeping,Oh Sympathy! that lonely hour

Saw Love himself thy absence weeping.

But look, what glory through the darkness ams! Celestial airs along the water glide :—

What Spirit art thou, moving o'er the tide

So beautiful? oh, not of earth,
But, in that glowing hour, the birth
Of the young Godhead's own creative dreams.
"Tis she!

Psyche, the firstborn spirit of the air.

To thee, oh Love, she turns,

On thee her eyebeam burns:

Blest hour, before all worlds ordain'd to be!
They meet-

The blooming god-the spirit fair
Meet in communion sweet.
Now, Sympathy, the hour is thine
All nature feels the thrill divine,

The veil of Chaos is withdrawn,
And their first kiss is great Creation's dawn!

and Berouth, I think, are Sanchoniatho's first spiritual lovers, and Manco-capac and his wife introduced creation amongst the Peruvians. In short, Harlequin seems to have studied cosmogonies, when he said "tutto il mondo è fatto come la nostra famiglia."

TO

HIS SERENE HIGHNESS

THE DUKE OF MONTPENSIER,

ON HIS

PORTRAIT OF THE LADY ADELAIDE FORBES.

Donington Park, 1802.

To catch the thought, by painting's spell,

Howe'er remote, howe'er refined, And o'er the kindling canvass tell The silent story of the mind;

O'er nature's form to glance the eye,
And fix, by mimic light and shade,
Her morning tinges, ere they fly,

Her evening blushes, ere they fade;—

Yes, these are Painting's proudest powers;
The gift, by which her art divine
Above all others proudly towers,—
And these, oh Prince! are richly thine.

And yet, when Friendship sees thee trace,
In almost living truth express'd,
This bright memorial of a face

On which her eye delights to rest;

While o'er the lovely look serene,

The smile of peace, the bloom of youth, The cheek, that blushes to be seen,

The eye that tells the bosom's truth;

While o'er each line, so brightly true,

Our eyes with ling'ring pleasure rove, Blessing the touch whose various hue

Thus brings to mind the form we love;

1 Though I have styled this poem a Dithyrambic 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 known. According to M. Burette, a licentious irregularity of metre, an extravagant research of thought and expression, and a rude embarrassed construction, are among its most distinguishing features; and in all these respects, I have but too closely, I fear, followed my models. Burette adds, "Ces caractères des dithyrambes se font sentir à ceux qui lisent attentivement les odes de Pindare."-Mémoires de l'Acad. vol. x. p. 306. The same opinion may be collected from Schmidt's dissertation upon the subject. Ithink, ho'vever, if th 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 beau désordre." Chiabrera, who has been styled the Pindar of Italy, and from whom all its poetry upon the Greek model was called Chiabreresco, (as Crescimbeni informs us, lib. i. cap. 2,) has given, amongst his Vendemmie, a Dithyrambic, "all' uso de' Greci ;" full of those compound epithets, which, we are told, were a chief characteristic of the style, (συνθετους δε λεξεις σποιουν -Suid, Διθυραμβοδιδ. ;) such as

We feel the magic of thy art, And own it with a zest, a zeal, A pleasure, nearer to the heart Than critic taste can ever feel

THE FALL OF HEBE

A DITHYRAMBIC ODE 1

"Twas on a day

Whez he 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,
Stored the rich fluid of ethereal soul.2
Around,

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

(Where they have bathed them in the orient ray,
And with rich 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 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:

Briglindorato Pegaso Nubicalpestator.

But I cannot suppose that Pindar, even amidst all the licens of dithyrambics, would ever have descended to ballad-lan guage like the following:

Bella Filli, e bella Clori,

Non più dar pregio a tue bellezze e taci, Che se Bacco fa vezzi alle mie labbra Fo le fiche a' vostri baci.

-esser vorrei Coppier,

E se troppo desiro
Deh fossi io Bottiglier.

Rine del CHIABRERA, part ii. p. 352.

2 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.-Tavr' cine kai radio emi τον πρότερον κρατήρα εν ώ την του παντος ψυχης· κεραννος έμισγε, κ. τ. λ

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Gush'd forth into the cup with mantling heat,

Her watchful care

Was still to cool its liquid fire

With snow-white sprinklings of that feathery

air

The children of the Pole respire,

In those enchanted lands,"

Where life is all a spring, and north winds never blow.

But oh!

Bright Hebe, what a tear,

And what a blush were thine, When, as the breath of every Grace Wafted thy feet along the studded sphere,

With a bright cup for Jove himself to dri:., Some star, that shone beneath thy tread, Raising its amorous head

To kiss those matchless feet,

Check'd thy career too fleet,
And all heaven's host of eyes
Entranced, but fearful all,
Saw thee, sweet Hebe, prostrate fall

Upon the bright floor of the azure skies
Where, mid its stars, thy beauty lay,
As blossom, shaken from the spray
Of a spring thorn,

Lies mid the liquid sparkles of the morn.
Or, as in temples of the Paphian shade,
The worshippers of Beauty's queen behold
An image of their rosy idol, laid
Upon a diamond shrine.

The wanton wind,

Which had pursued the flying fair,
And sported mid the tresses unconfined
Of her bright hair,

Now, as she fell,-oh wanton breeze!
Ruffled the robe, whose graceful flow
Hung o'er those limbs of unsunn'd snow,
Purely as the Eleusinian veil
Hangs o'er the Mysteries !5

1 We learn from Theophrastus, that the roses of Cyrene-HERODOT. lib. iv. cap. 31. Ovid tells the fable otherwise: were particularly fragrant.-Evoquara ra de ra ev Kupnun poda.

2 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. These people 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. &c. 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 bat feathers! According to Herodotus and Pliny, this idea was suggested by the quantity of snow which was observed to fall in those regions; thus the former: Ta ův пrɛpa ɛixagor τας την χιονα τους Σκύθας τε και τους περιοικους δοκέω λεγειν. |

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!

4 It is Servius, I believe, 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 lubricum minus cauté incedens, cecidisset," &c.

The arcane symbols of this ceremony were deposited in the cista, 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

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Fell glowing through the spheres ;
While all around new tints of bliss,
New odors and new light,
Enrich'd its radiant flow.

Now, with a liquid kiss,

It stole along the thrilling wire

Of Heaven's luminous Lyre,2
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 this rosy flame

Descending through the waste of night,

Thought 'twas some planet, whose empyreal frame

Had kindled, as it rapidly revolved

Around its fervid axle, and dissolved

Into a flood so bright!

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apply in the world, "asinus portat mysteria." See the boy sented upon a lotos. Eite Alyvnrovs έwpakws apxnv araDivine Legation, book ii. sect. 4.

1 In the Geoponica, lib. ii. cap. 17, there is a fable somewhat like this descent of the nectar to earth. Εν ουρανῳ των θεών ευωχουμένων, και του νεκταρος πολλού παρακειμένου, ανασκίρτησαι χορεία των Ερωτα και συσσείσαι τω πτέρῳ του κρατήρος την βασιν, και περιτρέψαι μεν αυτόν το δε νεκταρ εις την γην εκχυθεν, κ. τ. λ. Vid. Autor. de Re Rust. edit. Cantab. 1704.

2 The constellation Lyra. The astrologers attribute great virtues to this sign in ascendenti, which are enumerated by Pontano, in his Urania:

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πολης παιδιον νεογνόν γράφοντας επί λωτῳ καθεζόμενον.-Ρίαtarch. περί του μη χραν εμμετρ. See also his Treatise de Isid. et Osir. Observing that the lotos showed its head above water at sunrise, and sank again at his setting, they conceived the idea of consecrating this flower to Osiris, or the sun.

This symbol of a youth sitting upon a lotos is very frequent on the Abraxases, or Basilidian stones. See Montfaucon, tom. ii. planche 158, and the "Supplement," &c. tom. ii. lib. vii. chap. 5.

4 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. Plutarch. Sympos. lib. iv. cap. 2, where (as Vossius remarks) Katovat, instead of xadovai, is undoubtedly the genuine reading. See Vossing. for some curious particularities of the rainbow, De Origin. et Progress. Idololat. lib. iii. cap. 13.

"That seal which oft, in moments blest, "Thou hast upon my lip impress'd, "And sworn its sacred spring should be "A fountain seal'd' for only thee: "Take, take them back, the gift and vow, "All sullied, lost and hateful now!"

I took the ring-the seal I took, While, oh, her every tear and look Were such as angels look and shed, When man is by the world misled. Gently I whisper'd, " Fanny, dear! "Not half thy lover's gifts are here: "Say, where are all the kisses given, "From morn to noon, from noon to even,"Those signets of true love, worth more "Than Solomon's own seal of yore,"Where are those gifts, so sweet, so many? "Come, dearest,—give back all, if any."

While thus I whisper'd, trembling too, Lest all the nymph had sworn was true, I saw a smile relenting rise 'Mid the moist azure of her eyes, Like daylight o'er a sea of blue, While yet in mid-air hangs the dew. She let her cheek repose on mine, She let my arms around her twine; One kiss was half allow'd, and thenThe ring and seal were hers again.

I knew not then that Heaven had sent A voice, a form like thine on earth.

And yet, in all that flowery maze Through which my path of life has led, When I have heard the sweetest lays From lips of rosiest lustre shed;

When I have felt the warbled word

From Beauty's lip, in sweetness vying With music's own melodious bird, When on the rose's bosom lying;

Though form and song at once combined

Their loveliest bloom and softest thrill, My heart hath sigh'd, my ear hath pined For something lovelier, softer still :—

Oh, I have found it all, at last,

In thee, thou sweetest living lyre Through which the soul of song e'er rass'd, Or feeling breathed its sacred fire.

All that I e'er, in wildest flight

Of fancy's dreams, could hear or see Of music's sigh or beauty's light Is realized, at once, in thee!

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