TEMPE.

"Tempe's Thal,—das elysiche Thal,

Wo des Stromgotts Urne lângs

Gruner Au'n Goldfluthen giesst."-PLATEN.

"Je crois que le nom de ce fleuve (Galesus) a fait sa fortune chez les poètes, qui ne se piquent pas d'exactitude, et pour un nom harmonieux donneraient bien d'autres soufflets à la vérité. Il est probable que Blanduse doit aux mêmes titres sa celébrité, et sans le témoignage de Tite Live, je serais tenté de croire que le grand mérite de Tempe fut d'enricher les vers de syllables sonores."-P. L. COURIER. LETTRES.

THE vale of Tempe is cleft in the range of consecrated hills which branches from the great Pindus-chain to the Saronic gulf, and divides Ossa from Olympus, a circumstance of no mean significance in the process of its poetical reputation. Its most striking, because, perhaps, most unexpected, character is its narrowness; it is, in fact, a glen of the most limited dimensions. The Peneus, never exceeding the common breadth of a mountain-river, and the horse-path, often worked out of the side and projections of the Ossa ridge, fill up the whole space, with the exception of a strip of some few feet between them, from which spring the glorious platains, whose boughs uniting with those on the other side of the stream lead it on under one continual bower; around their roots are pomegranate and mastic, and thick grass, with bubbling springs of a still deeper verdant tinge than the rest of the water. "Intus suâ luce viridante adlabitur Peneus, viridis calculo, amoenus circa ripas gramine," poetically writes the prosaic Pliny. The cliff, on the

Olympus side, is a majestic wall, jutting out at regular intervals, as if in folds, but almost evenly precipitous: the other side, on the contrary, is a line of rugged crags, peaked or tabletopped, preserving occasional foundations and one or two turrets of the series of Roman fortresses, and well planted to their summits. I felt it rather a singular scene than any thing else, and much more singular must it have been in the old time, before the large secretion of alluvial soil, which places the mouth of the river many miles from the end of the ravine. "When Xerxes beheld," says Herodotus*, "the mouth of the Peneus, he was seized with great admiration ;" so even now I admired, but it was not admiration alone one wanted here. The admission of this impression of disappointment naturally led to the consideration of the causes of the eminence of this place in poetical geography. On this point two circumstances must not be overlooked; first, that the use of it, as a proverb of surpassing beauty, is exclusively Roman; and, secondly, that the mention of, and allusions to it, in Roman writers, are still more vague and indefinite than proverbial expressions are wont to be; with the exception of Horace, who may have passed through Tempe on his way to, or in return from, the disaster of Philippi, few of them could have had any personal knowledge of the scene which they were undeservedly exalting above all the familiar charms of their own glorious Italy, and adorning with the wilfulness of fancy. The description of Livy t may seem more close; but its whole tenor has little in common, not only with the enchanted imagination of the poets, but with the simplest features of the reality. Secondly, that the traveller, who had toiled for three or four days over the sullen monotony of the plain of Thessaly, was likely to be exaggerat

* vii. 128.

Rupes utrimque ita abscissæ sunt, ut despici vix sine vertigine quadam simul oculorum animique possit,-terret et sonitus et altitudo per mediam vallem fluentis Penei amnis.-xliv.

edly sensible of the beauty and interest into which his path suddenly transported him, and to bear away a remembrance commensurate with the pleasure he had received; but what must have been his state of feeling, his heart how highly toned, his spirit how eager a recipient of sweet and lovely impressions, and not only his, but that of those who heard him tell of what he had seen, and of those who transmitted the report to other lands and other generations, when he knew that this was "the Elysian valley," that the gods were on one side, and the godlike giants on the other, that the legend of the Titanic war, the battle of the powers of the Universe, took its date perhaps from that very convulsion of nature which caused this remarkable disruption of the mountains; that here those blessed beings, forms of Love and Truth, gentle and sublime, (“not yet dead, but in old marbles ever beautiful,") who were dear to him as his own thoughts, held their divine diversions; poised in air, or laughingly descending, walking proudly within this gallery of proud trees, or sheltered within this jewelled tide from the mid-day passion of the Sun their brother, while from that throne of rock looked down the Father and the King, an immense shadow in the midst of his own light, with a thought. ful delight and solemn smiles?

WE are in Tempe, Peneus glides below,-
That is Olympus, we are wondering
Where, in old history, Xerxes the great King,
Wondered. How strangely pleasant this to know!
We may have gazed on scenes of grander flow,
And on rocks cast in shapes more marvellous,
Now this delicious calm entices us,

These platain shades, to let the dull world go.
A poet's Mistress is a hallowed thing,

And all the beauties of his verse become

Her own ;-
—so be it with the poet's Vale:
Listen those emerald waters murmuring,

Behold the cliffs, that wall the gods' old home,
And float into the Past with softly swelling sail.

OLYMPUS.

WITH no sharp-sided peak or sudden cone,
Thou risest o'er the blank Thessalian plain,
But in the semblance of a rounded throne,
Meet for a monarch and his noble train
To hold high synod ;-but I feel it vain,
With my heart full and passionate as now,
To frame my humble verse, as I would fain,
To calm description,-I can only bow

My head and soul, and ask again, "if that be Thou?”

I feel before thee, as of old I felt,

(With sense, as just, more vivid in degree)
When first I entered, and unconscious knelt
Within the Roman Martyr's sanctuary :
I feel that ages laid their faith on Thee,

And if to me thou art a holy hill,

Let not the pious scorn,-that Piety

Though veiled, that Truth, though shadowy, were still All the world had to raise its heart and fallen will.

Thou Shrine which man, of his own natural thought,
Gave to the God of Nature, and girt round
With elemental mightiness, and brought

Splendour of form and depth of thunderous sound,
To wall about with awe the chosen ground,—
All without toil of slaves or lavished gold,
Thou wert upbuilt of memories profound,
Imaginations wonderful and old,

And the pure gems that lie in Poets' hearts untold.

God was upon Thee in a thousand forms

Of Terror and of Beauty, stern and fair, Upgathered in the majesty of storms,

Or floating in the film of summer air; Thus wert Thou made ideal everywhere; From Thee the odorous plumes of Love were spread, Delight and plenty through all lands to bear,From Thee the never-erring bolt was sped

To curb the impious hand or blast the perjured head.

How many a Boy, in his full noon of faith,
Leaning against the Parthenon, half-blind