But now in stedfast love and happy state
She with him lives, and hath him borne a chyld,
Pleasure, that doth both gods and men aggrate,
Pleasure, the daughter of Cupid and Psyche late.

E. SPENSER (Faerie Queene III, vi, 29-50).

56. Upon the shore of Argolis there

stands'

PON the shore of Argolis there stands

UPON

A temple to the goddess that he sought,

That, turned unto the lion-bearing lands,

Fenced from the east, of cold winds hath no thought, Though to no homestead there the sheaves are brought, No groaning press torments the close-clipped murk, Lonely the fane stands, far from all men's work.

Pass through a close, set thick with myrtle-trees, Through the brass doors that guard the holy place, And, entering, hear the washing of the seas That twice a day rise high above the base, And, with the southwest urging them, embrace The marble feet of her that standeth there, That shrink not, naked though they be and fair.

Small is the fane through which the sea-wind sings About Queen Venus' well-wrought image white; But hung around are many precious things, The gifts of those who, longing for delight, Have hung them there within the goddess' sight, And in return have taken at her hands The living treasures of the Grecian lands.

W. MORRIS (Earthly Paradise: Love of Alcestis).

57.

Cupid and my Campaspe'

UPID and my Campaspe play'd
A cards for kisses Cupid paid:

CUP

He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose

Growing on 's cheek (but none knows how);
With these, the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin :
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes-
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this for thee?
What shall, alas: become of me?

J. LYLY (Cupid and Campaspe, Act III, Sc. 5).

58.

Hymn to Venus

Hwh the mighty Love has done;

EAR, ye ladies that despise

Fear examples and be wise:

Fair Callisto was a nun;

Leda, sailing on the stream

To deceive the hopes of man,
Love accounting but a dream,
Doted on a silver swan;

Danaë, in a brazen tower,

Where no love was, loved a shower.

Hear, ye ladies that are coy,
What the mighty Love can do ;
Fear the fierceness of the boy :

The chaste Moon he makes to woo;
Vesta, kindling holy fires,

Circled round about with spies,
Never dreaming loose desires,
Doting at the altar dies;

Ilion, in a short hour, higher
He can build, and once more fire.

J. FLETCHER (Valentinian, Act II, Sc. 5).

59. Fragment of an Ode to Maia, written on May Day, 1818

M

OTHER of Hermes! and still youthful Maia !
May I sing to thee

As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae ?
Or may I woo thee

In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles

Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles,
By bards who died content on pleasant sward,
Leaving great verse unto a little clan ?
O, give me their old vigour, and unheard
Save of the quiet Primrose, and the span
Of heaven and few ears,

Rounded by thee, my song should die away
Content as theirs,

Rich in the simple worship of a day.

J. KEATS.

SWEE

WEET Echo, sweetest Nymph, that liv'st unseen
Within thy airy shell,

By slow Meander's margent green

And in the violet imbroider'd vale

Where the love-lorn Nightingale

Nightly to thee her sad Song mourneth well
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle Pair
That likest thy Narcissus are?

O if thou have

Hid them in som flowry Cave,

Tell me but where

Sweet Queen of Parly, Daughter of the Sphear, So maist thou be translated to the skies,

And give resounding grace to all Heav'ns Harmonies.

61.

J. MILTON (Comus, 230–43).

Chiron

N such a glen, on such a day,
On Pelion, on the grassy ground
Chiron, the aged Centaur, lay,
The young Achilles standing by:
The Centaur taught him to explore
The mountains; where the glens are dry,
And the tired Centaurs come to rest,
And where the soaking springs abound,
And the straight ashes grow for spears,
And where the hill-goats come to feed,
And the sea-eagles build their nest.
He show'd him Phthia far away,

62.

And said: O boy, I taught this lore
To Peleus, in long distant years!
He told him of the Gods, the stars,
The tides; and then of mortal wars,
And of the life which heroes lead
Before they reach the Elysian place
And rest in the immortal mead;
And all the wisdom of his' race.

M. ARNOLD

(Empedocles on Etna, Act I, Sc. ii, 57-76).

Silenus

ILENUS, when he led the Satyrs home,

SILEN

Young Satyrs, tender-hooft and ruddy-horn'd, With Bacchus equal-aged, sat down sometimes Where softer herbs invited, then releast From fawn-skin pouch a well-compacted pipe, And sprinkled song with wisdom.

Some admired

The graceful order of unequal reeds;

Others cared little for the melody

Or what the melody's deep bosom bore,

And thought Silenus might have made them shine. 10
They whisper'd this: Silenus overheard,
And mildly said "Twere easy: thus I did
When I was youthful: older, I perceive
No pleasure in the buzzes of the flies,
Which like what you like, O my little ones.'
Some fancied he reproved them, and stood still,
Until they saw how grave the Satyr boys
Were looking; then one twicht an upright ear
And one a tail recurv'd, or stroked it down.