Starting at once from their green seats, they rise; First lifts above the waves her beauteous head; Who to his careless mother makes his moan. CYRENE RECEIVES HER SON; THE HOMES OF THE RIVERS Cyrene, moved with love, and seized with fear, THE WATER PALACE OF CYRENE, AND HER ENTERTAINMENT. She sprinkled thrice with wine the vestal fire, PROTEUS, THE SHEPHERD OF THE SEAS, AND HIS METAMOR- In the Carpathian bottom makes abode Break out in crackling flames to shun thy snares, THE CAVE OF PROTEUS.— ARISTEUS CONDUCTED THERE BY This said, with nectar she her son anoints; A large recess, concealed from human eyes; abide; A station safe for ships, when tempests roar, The goddess guides her son, and turns him from the light: Herself, involved in clouds, precipitates her flight. PROTEUS SURROUNDED BY HIS HERDS OF SEALS, ETC. "T was noon; the sultry dog-star from the sky Scorched Indian swains, the rivelled grass was dry; The sun with flaming arrows pierced the flood, And, darting to the bottom, baked the mud : When weary Proteus, from the briny waves, Retired for shelter to his wonted caves : His finny flocks about their shepherd play, And, rolling round him, spirt the bitter sea. Unwieldily they wallow first in ooze, Then in the shady covert seek repose. Himself their herdsman, on the middle mount, Takes of his mustered flocks a just account. So, seated on a rock, a shepherd's groom Surveys his evening flocks returning home; When lowing calves, and bleating lambs, from far, Provoke the prowling wolf to nightly war. CONTEST OF ARISTÆUS WITH PROTEUS. The occasion offers, and the youth complies: For scarce the weary god had closed his eyes, When rushing on, with shouts, he binds in chains The drowsy prophet, and his limbs constrains. He, not unmindful of his usual art, First in dissembled fire attempts to part; Then roaring beasts, and running streams, he tries, And wearies all his miracles of lies; But having shifted every form to 'scape, Convinced of conquest, he resumed his shape; And thus, at length, in human accent spoke. Audacious youth, what madness could provoke A mortal man t' invade a sleeping god? What business brought thee to my dark abode? To this the audacious youth: thou know'st full My name and business, god, nor need I tell : [well No man can Proteus cheat; but, Proteus, leave Thy fraudful arts, and do not thou deceive. Following the gods' command, I come t' implore Thy help, my perished people to restore. PROTEUS TELLS THE STORY OF ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE. DEATH OF EURYDICE. The seer, who could not yet his wrath assuage, Rolled his green eyes, that sparkled with his rage; And gnashed his teeth, and cried, No vulgar god Pursues thy crimes, nor with a common rod. Thy great misdeeds have met a due reward, And Orpheus' dying prayers at length are heard. For crimes not his the lover lost his life, And at thy hands requires his murdered wife : Nor (if the fates assist not) canst thou 'scape The just revenge of that intended rape. To shun thy lawless lust, the dying bride, TUNEFUL GRIEF OF ORPHEUS. The unhappy husband, husband now no more, Did on his tuneful harp his loss deplore, [store. And sought his mournful mind with music to reOn thee, dear wife, in deserts all alone, He called, sighed, sung; his griefs with day begun, ORPHEUS VISITS HELL. [laid. Th' infernal troops like passing shadows glide, And, listening, crowd the sweet musician's side: Not flocks of birds, when driven by storms or night, Stretch to the forest with so thick a flight. Men, matrons, children, and the unmarried maid, The mighty hero's more majestic shade, And youths on funeral piles before their parents All these Cocytus bounds with squalid reeds, With muddy ditches, and with deadly weeds: And baleful Styx encompasses around With nine slow circling streams th' unhappy ground. Ev'n from the depths of hell the damned advance ; Th' infernal mansions, nodding, seem to dance; The gaping three-mouthed dog forgets to snarl ; The furies hearken, and their snakes uncurl; Ixion seems no more his pains to feel, But leans attentive on his standing wheel. ORPHEUS, RETURNING WITH EURYDICE, LOOKS BACK, AND LOSES HIS WIFE FOREVER; HER TOUCHING FAREWELL. All dangers past, at length the lovely bride In safety goes, with her melodious guide; Longing the common light again to share, And draw the vital breath of upper air: He first, and close behind him followed she, For such was Proserpine's severe decree. When strong desires th' impatient youth invade; By little caution and much love betrayed: A fault which easy pardon might receive, Were lovers judges, or could hell forgive. For near the confines of ethereal light, And longing for the glimmering of a sight, The unwary lover cast his eyes behind, Forgetful of the law, nor master of his mind. Straight all his hopes exhaled in empty smoke; And his long toils were forfeit for a look. Three flashes of blue lightning gave the sign Of cov'nants broke, three peals of thunder join. Then thus the bride: What fury seized on thee, Unhappy man! to lose thyself and me? Dragged back again by cruel destinies, An iron slumber shuts my swimming eyes. In vain, with folding arms, the youth assayed THE GRIEF OF ORPHEUS; THE BEREAVED NIGHTINGALE. Nor would the infernal ferryman once more Be bribed, to waft him to the further shore. What should he do, who twice had lost his love? What notes invent, what new petitions move? Her soul already was consigned to fate, And shivering in the leaky sculler sat. For seven continued months, if fame say true, The wretched swain his sorrows did renew; By Strymon's freezing streams he sat alone, The rocks were moved to pity with his moan: Trees bent their heads to hear him sing his wrongs, Fierce tigers couched around, and lolled their fawning tongues. So, close in poplar shades, her children gone, The mother-nightingale laments alone : Whose nest some prying churl had found, and thence, By stealth, conveyed th' unfeathered innocence. But she supplies the night with mournful strains, And melancholy music fills the plains. THE DREADFUL FATE OF ORPHEUS. Sad Orpheus thus his tedious hours employs, Averse from Venus, and from nuptial joys. Alone he tempts the frozen floods, alone Th' unhappy climes, where Spring was never known; He mourned his wretched wife, in vain restored, And Pluto's unavailing boon deplored. The Thracian matrons, who the youth accused At length against his sacred life conspired. [killed PROTEUS DISAPPEARS. THE ADVICE OF CYRENE. This answer Proteus gave, nor more he said, But in the billows plunged his hoary head; [spread. And where he leaped, the waves in circles widely The nymph returned, her drooping son to cheer, And bade him banish his superfluous fear : For now, said she, the cause is known from whence Thy woe succeeded, and for what offence: The nymphs, companions of th' unhappy maid, This punishment upon thy crimes have laid; And sent a plague among thy thriving bees. With vows and suppliant prayers their powers apThe soft Napaan race will soon repent [pease : Their anger, and remit the punishment : The secret in an easy method lies; Select four brawny bulls for sacrifice, Which on Lycæus graze, without a guide; Add four fair heifers yet in yoke untried: For these, four altars in their temple rear, And then adore the woodland powers with prayer. From the slain victims pour the streaming blood, And leave the bodies in the shady wood : Nine mornings thence, Lethæan poppy bring, To appease the manes of the poet's king: And, to propitiate his offended bride, A fatted calf and a black ewe provide : This finished, to the former woods repair. ARISTEUS PERFORMS THE PRESCRIBED RITES, AND THE BEES ARE PRODUCED; THEIR SWARMS. His mother's precepts he performs with care; The temple visits, and adores with prayer. Four altars raises; from his herd he culls, For slaughter, four the fairest of his bulls; Four heifers from his female store he took, All fair, and all unknowing of the yoke. Nine mornings thence, with sacrifice and prayers, The powers atoned, he to the grove repairs. Behold a prodigy! for from within The broken bowels, and the bloated skin, A buzzing noise of bees his ears alarms, — Straight issue through the sides assembling swarms; Dark as a cloud they make a wheeling flight, Then on a neighboring tree, descending, light: Like a large cluster of black grapes they show, And make a large dependence from the bough. CONCLUSION OF THE GEORGICS. — COMPLIMENT TO CÆSAR; THE GOLDEN AGE RENEWED.- NAPLES, THE RESIDENCE OF VIRGIL. Thus have I sung of fields, and flocks, and trees, And of the waxen work of laboring bees: While mighty Cæsar, thundering from afar, Seeks on Euphrates' banks the spoils of war; With conquering arts asserts his country's cause, With arts of peace the willing people draws; On the glad earth the Golden Age renews, And his great father's path to heaven pursues. While I at Naples pass my peaceful days, Affecting studies of less noisy praise : And bold, through youth, beneath the beechen The lays of shepherds, and their loves have played. [shade, Elegy and Ballad for July. GRAY'S "ELEGY," WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day, Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, The moping owl does to the moon complain Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield; Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their teams afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; The boast of heraldry, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud! impute to these the fault, If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire: Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute, inglorious Milton, - here may rest; Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. The applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade : nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind; The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride With incense kindled at the muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse, This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn, Brushing, with hasty steps, the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic root so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. Hard by yon wood, now smiling, as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove; Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love : 'One morn I missed him on the 'customed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite tree : Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he. The next, with dirges due, in sad array, [borne ; Slow through the church-yard path we saw him Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay, Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.' BLOOMFIELD'S "DOLLY." 'Ingenuous trust, and confidence of Love. THE bat began, with giddy wing, His circuit round the shed, the tree; And clouds of dancing gnats to sing A summer night's serenity. Darkness crept slowly o'er the east ; Upon the barn-roof watched the cat ; Sweet breathed the ruminating beast At rest where Dolly musing sat. A simple maid, who could employ The silent lapse of evening mild, And loved its solitary joy : For Dolly was Reflection's child. He who had pledged his word to be Her life's dear guardian, far away, The flower of yeoman cavalry, Bestrode a steed with trappings gay. And thus from Memory's treasured sweets, And thus from Love's pure fount, she drew That peace which busy Care defeats, And bids our pleasures bloom anew. Six weeks of absence have I borne Since Henry took his fond farewell : The charms of that delightful morn My tongue could thus forever tell. He at my window, whistling loud, Aroused my lightsome heart to go: Day, conquering, climbed from cloud to cloud; The fields all wore a purple glow. We strolled the bordering flowers among : One hand the bridle held behind, The other round my waist was flung: Sure never youth spoke half so kind! The rising lark I could but hear; And jocund seemed the song to be: But sweeter sounded in my ear, Will Dolly still be true to me!' And hooked a thousand holds unseen. The dimpling drops around had spread. The coming hours would joyless be. My bosom holds the fragrant prize. His time elapsed, he could not stay. Then first I felt the parting pang; — Sure the worst pang the lover feels! His horse, unruly, from me sprangThe pebbles flew beneath his heels. Then down the road his vigor tried, His rider gazing, gazing still: 'My dearest, I'll be true,' he cried ; — And, if he lives, I'm sure he will. Then haste, ye hours, haste, Eve and Morn, Yet strew your blessings round my home: Ere Winter's blasts shall strip the thorn, My promised joy, my Love, will come. |