To be the theme of every hour
The heart devotes to Fancy's power,
When her prompt magic fills the mind
With friends and joys we 've left behind,
And joys return and friends are near,
And all are welcomed with a tear:
In the mind's purest seat to dwell,
To be remembered oft and we l
By one whose heart, though vain and wild,
By passion led, by youth beguiled,
Can proudly still aspire to be
All that may yet win smiles from thee:
If thus to live in every part
Of a lone, weary wanderer's heart;
If thus to be its sole employ
Can give thee one faint gleam of joy,
Believe it, Mary, -oh! believe
A tongue that never can deceive,
Though, erring, it too oft betray
Even more than Love should dare to
say,

In Pleasure's dream or Sorrow's hour,
In crowded hall or lonely bower,
The business of my life shall be,
For ever to remember thee.

And though that heart be dead to mine,

Since Love is life and wakes not thine, I'll take thy image, as the form

Of one whom Love had failed to warm, Which, though it yield no answering thrill,

Is not less dear, is worshipt still
I'll take it, wheresoe'er I stray,
The bright, cold burden of my way.
To keep this semblance fresh in bloom,
My heart shall be its lasting tomb,
And Memory, with embalming care,
Shall keep it fresh and fadeless there.

THE GENIUS OF HARMONY.

AN IRREGULAR Ode.

Ad harmoniam canere mundum.

CICERO, "de Nat. Deor." lib. iii. THERE lies a shell beneath the waves, In many a hollow winding wreathed, Such as of old

Echoed the breath that warbling seamaids breathed;

This magic shell,

From the white bosom of a syren fell, As once she wandered by the tide that laves

Sicilia's sands of gold.
It bears

Upon its shining side the mystic notes
Of those entrancing airs,1

The genii of the deep were wont to swell,

When heaven's eternal orbs their midnight music rolled!

Oh! seek it, whereso'er it floats;
And, if the power

Of thrilling numbers to thy soul be dear,

1 In the "Histoire Naturelle des Antilles," there is an account of some curious shells, found at Curaçoa, on the back of which were lines, filled with musical characters so distinct and perfect, that the writer assures us a very charming trio was sung from one of them. "On le nomme musical, parce qu'il porte sur le dos des lignes noirâtres pleines de notes, qui ont une espèce de clé pour les mettre en chant, de sorte que l'on diroit qu'il ne manque que la lettre à cette tablature naturelle. Ce curieux gentilhomme (M. du Montel) rapporte qu'il en a vû qui avoient cinq lignes, une clé, et des notes, qui formoient un accord parfait. Quelqu'un y avoit ajouté la lettre, que la nature avoit oubliée, et la faisoit chanter en forme de trio, dont l'air étoit fort agréable.” - Chap. xix. art. 11. The author adds, a poet might imagine that these shells were used by the syrens at their concerts.

1 According to Cicero, and his commentator, Macrobius, the lunar tone is the gravest and faintest on the planetary heptachord. Quam ob causam summus ille cœli stellifer cursus, cujus conversio est concitatior, acuto et excitato movetur sono; gravissimo autem hic lunaris atque infimus. "Somn. Scip." Because, says Macrobius, "spiritu ut in extremitate languescente jam volvitur, et propter angustias quibus penultimus orbis arctatur impetu leniore convertitur." - In Somn. Scip." lib. ii. cap. 4. In their musical arrangement of the heavenly bodies, the ancient writers are not very intelligible. Ptolem. lib. iii.

See

Leone Hebreo, pursuing the idea of Aristotle, that the heavens are animal, attributes their harmony to perfect and reciprocal love. "Non pero manca fra loro il perfetto et reciproco amore: la causa principale, che ne mostra il loro amore, è la lor amicitia armonica et la concordanza, che perpetuamente si trova in loro.". Dialog. ii. di Amore, p. 58. This " reciproco amore" of Leone is the piórns of the ancient Empedocles, who seems, in his Love and Hate of the Elements, to have given a glimpse of the principles of attraction and repulsion. See the fragment to which I allude in Laertius, aλλOTE μὲν φιλότητι, συνερχόμεν', κ. τ. λ., lib. viii. cap.

2. n. 12.

2 Leucippus, the atomist, imagined a kind of vortices in the heavens, which he borrowed from Anaxagoras, and possibly suggested to Descartes.

3 Heraclides, upon the allegories of Homer, conjectures that the idea of the harmony of the spheres originated with this poet, who, in representing the solar beams as arrows, supposes them to emit a peculiar sound in the air.

4 In the account of Africa which D'Ablancourt has translated, there is mention of a tree in

Oh son of earth, what dreams shall rise for thee!

that country, whose branches, when shaken by the hand produce very sweet sounds. "Le même auteur (Abenzégar) dit, qu'il y a un certain arbre, qui produit des gaules comme d'osier, et qu'en les prenant à la main et les branlant, elles font une espèce d'harmonie fort agréable," etc.—“L'Afrique de Marmol."

5 Alluding to the extinction, or at least the disappearance, of some of those fixed stars, which we are taught to consider as suns, attended each by its system. Descartes thought that our earth might formerly have been a sun, which became obscured by a thick incrustation over its surface. This probably suggested the idea of a central fire.

6 Porphyry says, that Pythagoras held the sea to be a tear, τὴν θάλατταν μὲν ἐκάλει εἶναι δάKрvov (De Vita); and some one else, if I mistake not, has added the planet Saturn as the source of it. Empedocles, with similar affectation, called the sea the sweat of the earth: " ίδρωτα τῆς γῆς. See Rittershusius upon Porphyry, Num. 41.

7 The system of the harmonized orbs was styled by the ancients the Great Lyre of Orpheus, for which Lucian thus accounts:δὲ Λύρη ἑπτάμιτος ἔουσα τὴν τῶν κινουμένων ἀστρῶν ἁρμονίαν συνεβάλλετο. κ. τ. λ. in "As trolog."

8 διεῖλε ψύχας ἰσαρίθμους τοῖς ἄστροις, ἔνειμε θ' ἑκάστην πρὸς ἑκαστον, καὶ ἐμβιβάσας ὩΣ ΕΙΣ 'OXHMA" Distributing the souls severally among the stars, and mounting each soul upon a star as on its chariot."- Plato, Timæus.

ňv

The

1 This musical river is mentioned in the romance of Achilles Tatius. ἐπεὶ ποταμοῦ δὲ ἀκουσαι θέλῃς τοῦ ὕδατος λαλοῦντος. Latin version, in supplying the hiatus which is in the original, has placed the river in Hispania. "In Hispania quoque fluvius est, quem primo aspectu," etc.

2 These two lines are translated from the words of Achilles Tatius. ἐὰν γὰρ ὀλίγος ἄνεμος εἰς τὰς δίνας ἐμπέσῃ, τὸ μὲν ὕδωρ ὡς χορδὴ κρούεται, τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα τοῦ ὕδατος πλήκτρον γίνεται. τὸ ῥεῦμα δὲ ὡς κιθάρα λαλεῖ. - Lib. ii.

3 Orpheus.

4 They called his lyre ἀρχαιότροπον ἑπτάχορ δον Ορφέως. See a curious work by a professor of Greek at Venice, entitled "Hebdomades, sive septem de septenario libri. -Lib. iv. cap. 3.

p. 177.

5 Eratosthenes, in mentioning the extreme veneration of Orpheus for Apollo, says that he was accustomed to go to the Pangæan mountain at day-break, and there wait the rising of the sun, that he might be the first to hail its beams. ἐπεγειρόμενός τε τῆς νυκτὸς, κατὰ τὴν ἑωθινὴν ἐπὶ τὸ ὄρος τὸ καλουμένον Παγγαιον, προσέμενε τὰς ἀνατολὰς, ἵνα ἴδῃ τὸν Ἥλιον πρῶτον. Καταστερίσμ. 24.

6 There are some verses of Orpheus preserved to us, which contain sublime ideas of the unity

Whose seal upon this new-born world imprest

The various forms of bright divinity!

Or, dost thou know what dreams I

wove,

Mid the deep horror of that silent bower, 8

Where the rapt Samian slept his holy slumber?

When, free

From every earthly chain, From wreaths of pleasure and from bonds of pain,

His spirit flew through fields above, Drank at the source of nature's fontal number,9

And saw, in mystic choir, around him

move

The stars of song, Heaven's burning minstrelsy!

Such dreams, so heavenly bright,
I swear

By the great diadem that twines my hair,

And by the seven gems that sparkle there, 10

and magnificence of the Deity. For instance, those which Justin Martyr has produced: οὗτος μὲν χάλκειον ἐς οὐρανὸν ἐστήρικται χρυσείῳ ἐνὶ θρόνῳ, κ. τ. λ.

"Ad Græc. Cohortat." It is thought by some, that these are to be reckoned amongst the fabrications, which were frequent in the early times of Christianity. Still, it appears doubtful to whom they are to be attributed, being too pious for the Pagans, and too poetical for the Fathers.

7 In one of the Hymns of Orpheus, he attributes a figured seal to Apollo, with which he imagines that deity to have stamped a variety of forms upon the universe.

8 Alluding to the cave near Samos, where Pythagoras devoted the greater part of his days and nights to meditation and the mysteries of his philosophy. "Iamblich. de Vit." This, as Holstenius remarks, was in imitation of the Magi.

9 The tetractys, or sacred number of the Pythagoreans, on which they solemnly swore, and which they called παγαν ἀενάου φύσεως, "the fountain of perennial nature.' Lucian has ridiculed this religious arithmetic very cleverly in his Sale of Philosophers.

One maid there was, who round her lyre The mystic myrtle wildly wreathed;

But all her sighs were sighs of fire,

The myrtle withered as she breathed.

Oh! you, that love's celestial dream,
In all its purity, would know,
Let not the senses' ardent beam

Too strongly through the vision glow.
Love safest lies, concealed in night,
The night where heaven has bid him
lie;

Oh! shed not there unhallowed light,

Or, Psyche knows, the boy will fly.1

Sweet Psyche, many a charmed hour,
Through many a wild and magic waste,
To the fair fount and blissful bower 2
Have I, in dreams, thy light foot traced!
Where'er thy joys are numbered now,
Beneath whatever shades of rest,
The Genius of the starry brow 3
Hath bound thee to thy Cupid's breast;

Whether above the horizon dim,

Along whose verge our spirits stray,

1 See the story in Apuleius. With respect to this beautiful allegory of Love and Psyche, there is an ingenious idea suggested by the senator Buonarotti, in his "Osservazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi antici." He thinks the fable is taken from some very occult mysteries, which had long been celebrated in honor of Love; and accounts, upon this supposition, for the silence of the more ancient authors upon the subject, as it was not till towards the decline of pagan superstition, that writers could venture to reveal or discuss such ceremonies. Accordingly, observes this author, we find Lucian and Plutarch treating, without reserve, of the Dea Syria, as well as of Isis and Osiris; and Apuleius, to whom we are indebted for the beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche, has also detailed some of the mysteries of Isis. See the Giornale di Litterati d'Italia, tom. xxvii. articol. 1. See also the observations upon the ancient gems in the "Museum Florentinum," vol. i. p. 156.

I cannot avoid remarking here an error into which the French Encyclopédistes have been led by M. Spon, in their article Psyche. They say "Petrone fait un récit de la pompe nuptiale de ces deux amans (Amour et Psyche). Déjà, ditil," etc. The Psyche of Petronius, however, is a servant-maid, and the marriage which he describes is that of the young Pannychis. See Spon's Recherches curieuses," etc. Dissertat. 5.

2 Allusions to Mrs. Tighe's Poem.

3 Constancy.