THE SNOW-SPIRIT.

Tu potes insolitas, Cynthia. ferre nives?

Propert. lib. i. eleg. 8.
No, ne'er did the wave in its element steep
An island of lovelier charms;

It blooms in the giant embrace of the deep,
Like Hebe in Hercules' arms!

The tint of your bowers is balm to the eye,
Their melody balm to the ear;

But the fiery planet of day is too nigh,

And the Snow-Spirit never comes here!

The down from his wing is as white as the pearl
Thy lips for their cabinet stole,

And it falls on the green earth as melting, my gir.
As a murmur of thine on the soul!

Oh! fly to the clime where he pillows the death
As he cradles the birth of the year;

Bright are your bowers and balmy their breath,
But the Snow-Spirit cannot come here!

How sweet to behold him, when, borne on the gale,
And brightening the bosom of morn,

He flings, like the priest of Diana, a veil
O'er the brow of each virginal thorn!
Yet think not the veil he so chillingly casts
Is the veil of a vestal severe;

No, no, thou wilt see what a moment it lasts,
Should the Snow-Spirit ever come here!

But fly to his region-lay open thy zone,
And he'll weep all his brilliancy dim,
To think that a bosom, as white as his own,
Should not melt in the daybeam like him!
Oh! lovely the print of those delicate feet
O'er his luminous path will appear-
Fly! my beloved! this island is sweet,
But the Snow-Spirit cannot come here!

Ένταυθα δε καθωρμισται ἡμιν, και ό, τι μεν όνομα τη νησω, οὐκ οἶδα χρυση δ ̓ ἀν προς γε εμου ὀνομαζοιτο.

Philostrat. Icon. 17, lib. 2.

I STOLE along the flowery bank,
While many a bending sea-grape* drank
The sprinkle of the feathery oar

That winged me round this fairy shore!
'Twas noon; and every orange bud
Hung languid o'er the crystal flood,

* The sea-side or mangrove grape, a native of the West Indies.

Faint as the lids of maiden eyes
Beneath a lover's burning sighs!
Oh! for a naiad's sparry bower,
To shade me in that glowing hour!
A little dove, of milky hue,
Before me from a plantain flew,
And, light along the water's brim,
I steered my gentle bark by him ;
For fancy told me, love had sent
This snowy bird of blandishment,
To lead me, where my soul should meet-
I knew not what, but something sweet!

Blest be the little pilot dove!
He had indeed been sent by love,
To guide me to a scene so dear
As fate allows but seldom here;

One of those rare and brilliant hours

Which, like the aloe's lingering flowers,
May blossom to the eye of man
But once in all his weary span !

Just where the margin's opening shade
A vista from the waters made,

My bird reposed his silver plume
Upon a rich banana's bloom.

O vision bright! O spirit fair!

What spell, what magic raised her there? 'Twas Nea! slumbering calm and mild, And bloomy as the dimpled child

Whose spirit in elysium keeps

Its playful sabbath, while he sleeps!

The broad banana's green embrace

Hung shadowy round each tranquil grace;
One little beam alone could win

The leaves to let it wander in,
And, stealing over all her charms,

From lip to cheek, from neck to arms,

It glanced around a fiery kiss,

All trembling, as it went, with bliss!

Her eyelid's black and silken fringe
Lay on her cheek, of vermil tinge,
Like the first ebon cloud that closes
Dark on evening's heaven of roses!
Her glances, though in slumber hid,
Seemed glowing through their ivory lid,
And o'er her lip's reflecting dew
A soft and liquid lustre threw
Such as, declining dim and faint,
The lamp of some beloved saint
Doth shed upon a flowery wreath,

Which pious hands have hung beneath!

A KISS A L'ANTIQUE.

BEHOLD, my love, the curious gem
Within this simple ring of gold;
'Tis hallowed by the touch of them
Who lived in classic hours of old.

Some fair Athenian girl, perhaps,
Upon her hand this gem displayed,
Nor thought that Time's eternal lapse
Should see it grace a lovelier maid.
Look, darling, what a sweet design!
The more we gaze, it charms the more:
Come,-closer bring that cheek to mine,
And trace with me its beauties o'er.

Thou seest, it is a simple youth

By some enamoured nymph embracedLook, Nea love! and say in sooth Is not her hand most dearly placed?

Upon his curled head behind

It seems in careless play to lie,
Yet presses gently, half inclined
To bring his lip of nectar nigh!
O happy maid! too happy boy!
The one so fond and faintly loth,
The other yielding slow to joy-

Oh rare indeed, but blissful both!

Imagine, love, that I am he,

And just as warm as he is chilling; Imagine, too, that thou art she,

But quite as cold as she is willing:

So may we try the graceful way

In which their gentle arms are twined,
And thus, like her, my hand I lay
Upon thy wreathed hair behind:

And thus I feel thee breathing sweet,
As slow to mine thy head I move;
And thus our lips together meet,

And thus I kiss thee-O my love!

λιβανοτω εικασεν, ὅτι ἀπολλυμενον ἐυφραίνει.

Aristot. Rhetor. lib. iii. cap. 4.

THERE'S not a look, a word of thine
My soul hath e'er forgot;

Thou ne'er hast bid a ringlet shine,
Nor given thy locks one graceful twine,
Which I remember not!

There never yet a murmur fell
From that beguiling tongue
Which did not, with a lingering spell,
Upon my charmèd senses dwell,
Like something heaven had sung!

Ah! that I could, at once, forget
All, all that haunts me so-
And yet, thou witching girl !—and yet,
To die were sweeter than to let
The loved remembrance go!

No; if this slighted heart must see
Its faithful pulse decay,

Oh! let it die, remembering thee,
And, like the burnt aroma, be
Consumed in sweets away!

TO JOSEPH ATKINSON, ESQ.

FROM BERMUDA.

THE daylight is gone-but, before we depart,

One cup

shall go round to the friend of my heart,

To the kindest, the dearest-oh! judge by the tear,
That I shed while I name him, how kind and how dear!"

'Twas thus, by the shade of a calabash tree,

With a few who could feel and remember like me,
The charm that to sweeten my goblet I threw
Was a tear to the past and a blessing on you!

Oh! say, do you thus, in the luminous hour
Of wine and of wit, when the heart is in flower,
And shoots from the lip, under Bacchus's dew,
In blossoms of thought ever springing and new-
Do you sometimes remember, and hallow the brim
Of your cup with a sigh, as you crown it to him
Who is lonely and sad in these valleys so fair,
And would pine in elysium, if friends were not there?

Last night, when we came from the calabash tree,
When my limbs were at rest and my spirit was free,
The glow of the grape and the dreams of the day
Put the magical springs of my fancy in play;

And oh! such a vision as haunted me then
I could slumber for ages to witness again!
The many I like, and the few I adore,
The friends who were dear and beloved before,
But never till now so beloved and dear,

At the call of my fancy surrounded me here!
Soon, soon did the flattering spell of their smile
To a paradise brighten the blest little isle;
Serener the wave, as they looked on it, flowed,
And warmer the rose, as they gathered it, glowed!
Not the valleys Heræan (though watered by rills
Of the pearliest flow, from those pastoral hills
Where the song of the shepherd, primæval and wild,
Was taught to the nymphs by their mystical child)
Could display such a bloom of delight as was given,
By the magic of love, to this miniature heaven!

Oh, magic of love! unembellished by you,
Has the garden a blush or the herbage a hue?
Or blooms there a prospect in nature or art

Like the vista that shines through the eye to the heart!

Alas! that a vision so happy should fade!
That, when morning around me in brilliancy played,
The rose and the stream I had thought of at night
Should still be before me, unfadingly bright;

While the friends, who had seemed to hang over the stream

And to gather the roses, had fled with my dream!

But see, through the harbour, in floating array,
The bark that must carry these pages away
Impatiently flutters her wing to the wind,
And will soon leave the bowers of Ariel behind!
What billows, what gales is she fated to prove,
Ere she sleep in the lee of the land that I love!
Yet pleasant the swell of those billows would be,
And the sound of those gales would be music to me!
Not the tranquillest air that the winds ever blew,
Not the silvery lapse of the summer-eve dew,
Were as sweet as the breeze, or as bright as the foam,
Of the wave that would carry your wanderer home!

LOVE AND REASON.

Quand l'homme commence à raisonner, il cesse de sentir.
J. J. Rousseau.

"TWAS in the summer-time, so sweet,
When hearts and flowers are both in season,
That-who, of all the world, should meet,
One early dawn, but Love and Reason!

A ship ready to sail for England.