66

Yon sun now posting to the main
Will set, but 'tis to rise again;-
But we, when once our little light
Is set, must sleep in endless night.
Then come, with whom alone I'll live,
A thousand kisses take and give!
Another thousand !-to the store

Add hundreds-then a thousand more!
And when they to a million mount,
Let confusion take the account,-
That you, the number never knowing,
May continue still bestowing-
That I for joys may never pine,
Which never can again be mine!

CATULLUS.

Lugete, O Veneres, Cupidinesque.
Pity, mourn in plaintive tone
The lovely starling dead and gone!
Pity mourns in plaintive tone
The lovely starling dead and gone.
Weep, ye Loves! and Venus, weep
The lovely starling fall'n asleep!
Venus sees with tearful eyes-
In her lap the starling lies,
While the Loves all in a ring

Softly stroke the stiffen'd wing.

Moriens superstiti.

The hour-bell sounds, and I must go ;
Death waits-again I hear him calling ;---
No cowardly desires have I,

Nor will I shun his face appalling.

I die in faith and honour rich

But ah! I leave behind my treasure
In widowhood and lonely pain ;-
To live were surely then a pleasure!

"My lifeless eyes upon thy face
Shall never open more to-morrow;
To-morrow shall thy beauteous eyes

Be closed to love, and drown'd in sorrow;
To-morrow death shall freeze this hand,
And on thy breast, my wedded treasure,
I never, never more shall live ;-
Alas! I quit a life of pleasure."

Morienti superstes.

"Yet art thou happier far than she
Who feels the widow's love for thee!
For while her days are days of weeping,
Thou, in peace, in silence sleeping,
In some still world, unknown, remote,
The mighty parent's care hast found,
Without whose tender guardian thought
No sparrow falleth to the ground.”

'Twas sweet to know it only possible!

Some wishes cross'd my mind and dimly cheer'd it,
And one or two poor melancholy pleasures,
Each in the pale unwarming light of hope
Silvering its flimsy wing, flew silent by-
Moths in the moonbeam !—

-Behind the thin

Grey cloud that cover'd, but not hid, the sky,

The round full moon look'd small.

The subtle snow in every passing breeze

Rose curling from the grove like shafts of smoke.

-On the broad mountain top

The neighing wild colt races with the wind

O'er fern and heath-flowers.

-Like a mighty giantess

Seized in sore travail and prodigious birth,
Sick Nature struggled : long and strange her pangs,
Her groans were horrible ;—but O, most fair
The twins she bore, Equality and Peace.*

-Terrible and loud

As the strong voice that from the thunder-cloud
Speaks to the startled midnight.

Such fierce vivacity as fires the eye

Of genius fancy-crazed.

The mild despairing of a heart resign'd.

For the Hymn on the Sun.

-The Sun (for now his orb

'Gan slowly sink)

Shot half his rays aslant the heath, whose flowers
Purpled the mountain's broad and level top.

*This is the substance of the latter part of the second strophe, in the original version, of the Ode to the Departing Year (see Vol. i. p. 170, note).—ED.

Rich was his bed of clouds, and wide beneath
Expecting Ocean smiled with dimpled face.

For the Hymn on the Moon.

In a cave in the mountains of Cashmeer there is an image of ice, which makes its appearance thus: Two days before the new moon there appears a bubble of ice, which increases in size every day till the fifteenth, by which time it is an ell or more in height;—then as the moon wanes, the image decreases till it vanishes away.

In darkness I remain'd;-the neighbouring clock
Told me that now the rising sun at dawn
Shone lovely on my garden.

These be staggerers that, made drunk by power, Forget thirst's eager promise, and presume, Dark dreamers! that the world forgets it too!

-Perish warmth,

Unfaithful to its seeming!

Old age, 'the shape and messenger of death,'
His wither'd fist still knocking at death's door.

-God no distance knows

All of the whole possessing.

With skill that never alchemist yet told,
Made drossy lead as ductile as pure gold.

Guess at the wound and heal with secret hand.

The broad-breasted rock

Glasses his rugged forehead in the sea.

I mix in life, and labour to seem free,

With common persons pleased and common things, While every thought and action tends to thee,

And every impulse from thy influence springs.

Grant me a patron, gracious Heaven! whene'er
My unwash'd follies call for penance drear :
But when more hideous guilt this heart infests
Instead of fiery coals upon my pate,

O let a titled patron be my fate ;—
That fierce compendium of Egyptian pests!
Right reverend Dean, right honourable Squire,
Lord, Marquis, Earl, Duke, Prince,—or if aught higher,
However proudly nicknamed, he shall be

Anathema Maranatha to me!

His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead,
His tender smiles, love's day-dawn on his lips,
The sense, and spirit, and the light divine,
At the same moment in his steadfast eye
Were Virtue's native crest, th' immortal soul's
Unconscious meek self-heraldry,—to man
Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel.

He suffer'd nor complain'd ;-though oft with tears
He mourn'd th' oppression of his helpless brethren,--
Yea, with a deeper and yet holier grief

Mourn'd for the oppressor. In those sabbath hours