Dissolv'd in downy slumbers rest ;. "Or flutter o'er her panting breast. "Or wild to melt the yielding soul, clad in sable stole,
"Slow to thy musing thought appear; "Or pensive pity, pale;
"Or love's desponding tale
"Call from th' intender'd heart the sympathetic toar.? II. 1.
Say, whence the magic of thy mind?
Why thrills thy music on the springs of thought?
Why, at thy pencil's touch refin'd,
Starts into life the glowing draught?
On yonder fairy carpet laid,
Where beauty pours eternal bloom,
And zephyr breathes perfume;
There nightly to the tranced eye
Profuse the radiant goddess stood display'd,
With all her smiling offspring nigh.
Sudden the mantling cliff, the arching wood,
The broider'd mead, the landscape and the grove,
Hills, vales, and sky-dipt seas, and torrents rude,
Grots, rills, and shades, and bow'rs that breath'd of love,
All burst to sight! while glancing on the view,
Titania's sporting train brush'd lightly o'er the dew.
II. 2.
The pale-ey'd genius of the shade
Led thy bold step to prosper's magic bow'r;
Whose voice the howling winds obey'd,
Whose dark spell chain'd the rapid hour:
Then rose serene the sea-girt isle;
Gay scenes, by fancy's touch refin'd,
Glow'd to the musing mind:
Such visions bless the hermit's dream,
When hovering angels prompt bis placid smile,
Or paint some high ectatic theme.
Then flam'd Miranda on th' enraptur'd gaze,
Then sail'd bright Ariel on the bat's fleet wing:
Or starts the list'ning throng in still amaze,
The wild note trembling on the aërial string!
The form, in heaven's resplendent vesture gay,
Floats on the mantling cloud, and pours the melting lay,
Oh lay me near yon limpid stream,
Whose murmur sooths the ear of woe!
There in some sweet poetic dream
Let fancy's bright Elysium glow!
'Tis done-o'er all the blushing mead
The dark wood shakes his cloudy head:
Below, the lily-fringed dale
Breathes its mild fragrance on the gale;
While, in pastime all unseen,
Titania, rob'd in mantle green,
Sports on the mossy bank: her train
Skims light along the gleaming plain;
Or to the flutt'ring breeze unfold
The blue wing streak'd with beamy gold;
Its pinions op'ning to the light!-
Say, bursts the vision on my sight?
Ah, no! by Shakespeare's pencil drawn,
The beauteous shapes appear;
While meek-eyed Cynthia near
Illumes with streamy ray the silver-mantled lawn.
But hark! the tempest howls afar!
Bursts the loud whirlwind o'er the pathless waste!
What cherub blows the trump of war?
What demon rides the stormy blast?
Red from the lightning's livid blaze,
The bleak heath rushes on the sight;
Then, wrapt in sudden night
Dissolves. But, ah! what kingly form
Roams the lone desert's desolated maze
Unaw'd, nor heeds the sweeping storm?
Ye pale-ey'd lightnings, spare the check of age!
Vain wish! tho' anguish heaves the bursting groan,
Deaf as the flint, the marble ear of rage
Hears not the mourner's unavailing moan:
Heart-pierc'd he bleeds; and, stung with wild despair,
Bares his time-blasted head, and tears his silver hair.
Lo! on yon long-resounding shore,
Where the rock totters o'er the headlong deep;
What phantoms bath'd in infant gore
Stand mutt'ring on the dizzy steep!
Their murmur shakes the zephyr's wing!
The storm obeys their powerful spell;
See from his gloomy cell
Fierce winter starts! his scowling eye
Blots the fair mantle of the breathing spring,
And lowers along the ruffled sky,
To the deep vault the yelling harpies Fun;
Its yawning mouth receives th' infernal crew,
Dim through the black gloom winks the glimmering sun,.
And the pale furnace gleams with brimstone blue.
Hell howls; and fiends, that join the dire acclaim,
Dance on the bubbling tide, and point the livid flame..
But, ah! on sorrow's cypress bough
Can beauty breathe her genial bloom?
On death's cold cheek will passion glow?
Or music warble from the tomb?
There sleeps the bard, whose tuneful tongue
Pour'd the full stream of mazy song.
Young spring, with lip of ruby; here
Show'rs from her lap the blushing year;
While, along the turf reclin'd,
The loose wing swimming on the wind,
The Loves, with forward gesture bold,
Sprinkle the sod with spangling gold:
And oft the blue-eyed Graces trim
Dance lightly round on downy limb;
Oft too, when eve, demure and still,
Chequers the green dale's purling rill,
Sweet fancy pours the plaintive strain;
Or, wrapt in soothing dream,
By Avon's ruffled stream,
Hears the low-murm'ring gale that dies along the plain.
XXXII. Antenor's admirable contrast between the genius and talents of Ulysses and Menelaus.
THEN answer thus, Antenor sage, return'd. Princess! thou hast described him: hither once
The noble Ithacan, on thy behalf
Embassador with Menelaus, came,
And at my board I entertain'd them both.
The person and the intellect of each
I noted; and remark'd, that when they stood
Surrounded by the senators of Troy,
Atrides by the shoulders overtopp'd
The prince of Ithaca; but when they sat,
Ulysses had the more majestic air.
In his address to our assembled chiefs,
Sweet to the ear, but brief, was the harangue
Of Menelaus, neither loosely vague,
Nor wordy, though he were the younger man.
But when Ulysses rose, his downcast eyes
He rivetted so fast, his seeptre held
So still, as if a stranger to its use,
That hadst thou seen him, thou hadst thought him, sure,
Some chafed and angry ideot, passion-fixt.
Yet, when at length, the clear and mellow base
Of his deep voice brake forth, and he let fall
His chosen words like flakes of feather'd snow,
None then might match Ulysses; leisure, then,
Found none to wonder at his noble form.
XXXIII. Homer's description of the first battle of the Greeks and Trojans.
WHEN thus the rivals, each among his friends,
Had arm'd at every point, with eyes that flash'd
Fiercest defiance, to the ground they moved.
Each host beheld them with the stedfast gaze
Of expectation. On the measured ground
Full near they stood, both shook their threat'ning spears,
And rage incited both. First Paris hurl'd
His quiv'ring spear, and smote the rounded shield
Of Menelaus; but his doubling point
Enforced no passage through the stronger brass.
Next, Menelaus hurl'd. But first he pray'd.
All-righteous Jove! now grant me just revenge,
Now let the impious aggressor die!
That men unborn may shudder at the thought
Of hospitality with rape repaid.
He said, and brandishing his massy spear,
Dismiss'd it. Through the burnish'd buckler broad.
Of Priam's son the stormy weapon flew,
Transpierced the splendid corslet and the vest
Of his smooth flank; but, with a sideward bend
Eluding half its violence, he liv'd.
Then, Menelaus, with the downright edge
Of his bright faulchion smote him on the casque;
And all his blade fell shiver'd to the ground.
He look'd to heav'n, and with a groan exclaim'd—
There is no pow'r that favours wrong as thou,
Jove! I believed that Paris should have died
For his offence; but lo! my faulcion falls
In fragments, and my spear was hurl'd in vain.
Then, starting forward, by his hairy crest
He seiz'd him fast, and, turning, dragg'd him thence
Toward the Grecian host. The broider'd band
That underbraced his helmet at the chin,
Strain'd to his smooth neck with a ceaseless force,
Choak'd him; and now had Menelaus won
Immortal fame, his rival dragg'd away,
But Venus mark'd the moment, snapp'd the brace -
Though stubborn, by a slaughter'd ox supplied,
And the void helmet follow'd as he pull'd.
The hero seized and swung it to the Greeks
Who took the prize in charge; then, spear in hand,
He flew again to pierce his rival's heart.
XXXIV. Picture of the horrors of War.
MEAN-TIME, in ev'ry tent Achaia's sons
Took short refreshment, and for fight prepared.
On th' other side, though fewer, yet constrained
By strong necessity, throughout all Troy,
In the defence of children and of wives
Ardent, the Trojans panted for the field.
Wide flew the gates on either side, forth rush'd
Horsemen and foot, and tumult wild arose.
They met, they clash'd; loud was the din of spears
|