Thou leav'st me for the world! then go!
Thou art too young to feel it yet,
But time may teach thy heart to know—
The worth of those who ne'er forget.
THE golden sun, now rising, fill'd
The shrine of Love with day;
The earth in gladness opened wide,
And green the valley lay.
Serenely bright the goddess glow'd
Amid the purpled air,
And looked with gracious eyes benign
On those adoring there.
ILD forest trees the mountain's sides arrayed
With curling foliage and romantic shade.
Here spreads the poplar, to Alcides dear,
And dear to Phoebus, ever verdant here,
The laurel joins the bowers for ever green,
The myrtle bowers beloved by beauty's queen.
To Jove the oak his wide-spread branches rears,
And high to heaven the fragrant cedar bears.
Where through the glades appear the caverned rocks,
The lofty pine tree waves her sable locks.
Sacred to Cybele, the whispering pine
Loves the wild grottoes where the white cliffs shine.
Here towers the cypress, preacher to the wise;
Lessening from earth her spiral honours rise,
Till, as a spear-point reared, the topmost spray
Points to the Eden of eternal day.
A thousand flowers of gold, of white, and red,
Far o'er the shadowy vale their carpets spread
Of fairer tapestry, and of richer bloom,
Than ever glowed in Persia's boasted loom.
Here, o'er the watery mirror's lucid bed,
Narcissus, self-enamoured, hangs the head.
And here, bedew'd with love's celestial tears,
The woe-marked flower of slain Adonis rears
Its purple head, prophetic of the reign
When lost Adonis shall revive again.
The hyacinth bewrays the doleful Ai,
And calls the tribute of Apollo's sigh;
Still on its bloom the mournful flower retains
The lovely blue that dyed the stripling's veins.
CAMOENS, BY MICKLE.
A GARDEN vine, luxuriant on all sides, Mantled the spacious cavern, cluster-hung Profuse; four fountains of serenest lymph, Their sinuous course pursuing side by side, Strayed all around, and everywhere appeared Meadows of softest verdure, purpled o'er With violets; it was a scene to fill
A god from heaven with wonder and delight. COWPER'S HOMER.
LOVE, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power,
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye;
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopped;
Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails;
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste;
For valour, is not love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as sphinx; as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;
And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
TRETCHED on the ground, the wounded lover
Weep, queen of beauty! for he bleeds-he dies! Why didst thou, venturous, the wild chase explore, From his dark den to rouse the shaggy boar? Adonis hears not: life's last drops fall slow, In streams of purple, down those limbs of snow; From his pale cheek the fading roses fly,
And dewy mists obscure that radiant eye.
Kiss, kiss those fading lips ere chilled in death;
With soothing fondness stay the fleeting breath.
'Tis vain! ah! give thy soothing fondness o'er;
Adonis feels thy warm caress no more.
His faithful dogs bewail their master slain,
And mourning wood nymphs pour the plaintive strain.
Haste! fill with flowers, with rosy wreaths, his bed;
Strew the fresh flowers o'er loved Adonis dead;
Round his pale corpse each breathing perfume strew;
Let weeping myrtles pour their balmy dew,
While Venus grieves, and Cupids round deplore,
And mourn her beauty and her love, no more.
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