I'LL ask the sylph who round thee flies,

And in thy breath his pinion dips, Who suns him in thy radiant eyes, And faints upon thy sighing lips:

I'll ask him where's the veil of sleep That used to shade thy looks of light; And why those eyes their vigil keep, When other suns are sunk in night?

And I will say her angel breast

Has never throbb'd with guilty sting; Her bosom is the sweetest nest

Where Slumber could repose his wing!

And I will say her cheeks that flush,
Like vernal roses in the sun,
Have ne'er by shame been taught to blush,
Except for what her eyes have done!

Then tell me, why, thou child of air!

Does slumber from her eyelids rove? What is her heart's impassion'd care?— Perhaps, oh sylph! perhaps, 'tis love.

THE WONDER.

COME, tell me where the maid is found,
Whose heart can love without deceit,
And I will range the world around,
To sigh one moment at her feet.

Oh! tell me where's her sainted home,
What air receives her blessed sigh,

A pilgrimage of years I'll roam
To catch one sparkle of her eye!

LYING.

Che con le lor bugie pajon divini. Maure d'Arcano.

I DO confess, in many a sigh,

My lips have breathed you many a lie;

And who, with such delights in view,
Would lose them, for a lie or two?

Nay, look not thus, with brow reproving; Lies are, my dear, the soul of loving.

If half we tell the girls were true,

If half we swear to think and do,
Were aught but lying's bright illusion,
This world would be in strange confusion.
If ladies' eyes were, every one,
As lovers swear, a radiant sun,
Astronomy must leave the skies,
To learn her lore in ladies' eyes.
Oh, no-believe me, lovely girl,
When nature turns your teeth to pearl,
Your neck to snow, your eyes to fire,
Your amber locks to golden wire,
Then, only then can Heaven decree,
That you should live for only me,
Or I for you, as night and morn,
We've swearing kiss'd, and kissing sworn.

And now, my gentle hints to clear, For once I'll tell you truth, my dear. Whenever you may chance to meet Some loving youth, whose love is sweet, Long as you're false and he believes you, Long as you trust and he deceives you, So long the blissful bond endures, And while he lies, his heart is yours: But, oh! you've wholly lost the youth The instant that he tells you truth.

ANACREONTIC.

FRIEND of my soul, this goblet sip, "Twill chase that pensive tear;

"Then love the Lamp-'twill often lead

"Thy step through learning's sacred way; "And when those studious eyes shall read, "At midnight, by its lonely ray,

1 It does not appear to have been very difficult to become a philosopher among the ancients. A moderate store of learning, with a considerable portion of confidence, and just wit enough to produce an occasional apophthegm, seem to have been all the qualifications necessary for the purpose. The principles of moral science were so very imperfectly understood, that the founder of a new sect, in forming his ethical code, might consult either fancy or temperament, and adapt it to his own passions and propensities; so that Mahomet, with a little more learning, might have flourished as a philosopher in those days, and would have required but the polish of the schools to become the rival of Aristippus in morality. In the science of nature, too, though some valuable truths were discovered by them, they seemed hardly to know they were truths, or at least were as well satisfied with errors; and Xenophanes, who asserted that the stars were igneous clouds, lighted up every night and extinguished again in the morning, was thought and styled a philosopher,

"Of things sublime, of nature's birth, "Of all that's bright in heaven or earth, "Oh, think that she, by whom 'twas given, "Adores thee more than earth or heaven!"

Yes-dearest Lamp, by every charm

On which thy midnight beam has hung; The head reclined, the graceful arm Across the brow of iv. y flung;

The heaving bosom, partly hid,

The sever'd lip's unconscious sighs, The fringe that from the half-shut lid Adown the cheek of roses lies:

By these, by all that bloom untold,
And long as all shall charm my heart,
I'll love my little Lamp of gold-
My Lamp and I shall never part.

And often, as she smiling said,

In fancy's hour, thy gentle rays Shall guide my visionary tread

Through poesy's enchanting maze. Thy flame shall light the page refined,

Where still we catch the Chian's breath, Where still the bard, though cold in death, Has left his soul unquench'd behind. Or, o'er thy humbler legend shine,

Oh man of Ascra's dreary glades!" To whom the nightly warbling Nine

A wand of inspiration gave,

Pluck'd from the greenest tree, that shades The crystal of Castalia's wave.

Then, turning to a purer lore,
We'll cull the sages' deep-hid store;
From Science steal her golden clew,
And every mystic path pursue,
Where Nature, far from vulgar eyes,
Through labyrinths of wonder flies.

as generally as he who anticipated Newton in developing the arrangement of the universe.

For this opinion of Xenophanes, see Plutarch. de Placit. Philosoph., lib. ii. cap. 13. It is impossible to read this treatise of Plutarch, without alternately admiring the genius, and smiling at the absurdities of the philosophers.

2 The ancients had their lucerne cubiculariæ or bedchamber lamps, which, as the emperor Galienus said, "nil cras meminere ;" and, with the same commendation of secrecy, Praxagora addresses her lamp in Aristophanes, EKKλns. We may judge how fanciful they were, in the use and embellishment of their lamps, from the famous symbolic Lucerna which we find in the Romanum Museum Mich. Ang. Causei, p. 127.

Hesiod, who tells us in melancholy terms of his father's flight to the wretched village of Ascra. Epy. κaι 'Hɲɛp.v. 251, 4 Εννυχίαι στειχον, περικαλλέα υσσαν ιείσαι. Theag. v. 10 * Και μοι σκήπτρον εδον, δαφνης εριθήλεα οξον. Id. ν. 30

"Tis thus my heart shall learn to know
How fleeting is this world below,
Where all that meets the morning light,
Is changed before the fall of night!'

I'll tell thee, as I trim thy fire,

"Swift, swift the tide of being runs, "And Time, who bids thy flame expire, "Will also quench yon heaven of suns."

Oh, then if earth's united power
Can never chain one feathery hour;
If every print we leave to-day
To-morrow's wave will sweep away;
Who pauses to inquire of heaven
Why were the fleeting treasures given,
The sunny days, the shady nights,
And all their brief but dear delights,
Which heaven has made for man to use,
And man should think it crime to lose?
Who that has cull'd a fresh-blown rose
Will ask it why it breathes and glows,
Unmindful of the blushing ray,
In which it shines its soul away;
Unmindful of the scented sigh,
With which it dies and loves to die?

Pleasure, thou only good on earth!"
One precious moment given to thee-
Oh! by my Lais' lip, 'tis worth
The sage's immortality.

Then far be all the wisdom hence,

That would our joys one hour delay! Alas, the feast of soul and sense

Love calls us to in youth's bright day, If not soon tasted, fleets away.

Ne'er wert thou form'd, my Lamp, to shed Thy splendor on a lifeless page ;Whate'er my blushing Lais said

Of thoughtful lore and studies sage, 'Twas mockery all-her glance of joy Told me thy dearest, best employ."

1 'Per raóλa moraμov dikny, as expressed among the dogmas of Heraclitus the Ephesian, and with the same image by Seneca, in whom we find a beautiful diffusion of the thought. "Nemo est mane, qui fuit pridie. Corpora nostra rapiuntur Aluminum more; quidquid vides currit cum tempore. Nihil ex his quæ videmus manet. Ego ipse, dum loquor mutari ipsa, mutatus sum," &c.

2 Aristippus considered motion as the principle of happiness, in which idea he differed from the Epicureans, who looked to a state of repose as the only true voluptuousness, and avoided even the too lively agitations of pleasure, as a violent and ungraceful derangement of the senses.

* Maupertuis has been still more explicit than this philosopher, in ranking the pleasures of sense above the sublimest❘ pursuits of wisdom. Speaking of the infant man in his pro

duction, he calls him, "une nouvelle créature, qui pourra comprendre les choses les plus sublimes, et ce qui est bien au-dessus, qui pourra goûter les mêmes plaisirs." See his Vénus Physique. This appears to be one of the efforts at Fontenelle's gallantry of manner, for which the learned President is so well and justly ridiculed in the Akakia of Voltaire.

Maupertuis may be thought to have borrowed from the ancient Aristippus that indiscriminate theory of pleasures which he has set forth in his Essai de Philosophie Morale, and for which he was so very justly condemned. Aristippus, according to Laertius, held μη διαφέρειν τε ήδονην dovns, which irrational sentiment has been adopted by Maupertuis: "Tant qu'on ne considère que l'état présent, tous les plaisirs sont du même genre," &c. &c.

And still "Gooc night," my Rosa, say—
But whisper still," A minute stay;"
And I will stay, and every minute
Shall have an age of transport in it;
Till Time himself shall stay his flight,
To listen to our sweet "Good night."

"Good night!" you'll murmur with a sigh, And tell me it is time to fly:

And I will vow, will swear to go,
While still that sweet voice murmurs "No!"
Till slumber seal our weary sight-
And then, my love, my soul, "Good night !"

SONG.

WHY does azure deck the sky? "Tis to be like thine eyes of blue; Why is red the rose's dye?

Because it is thy blushes' hue. All that's fair, by Love's decree, Has been made resembling thee!

Why is falling snow so white,

But to be like thy bosom fair? Why are solar beams so bright?

That they may seem thy golden hair! All that's bright, by Love's decree, Has been made resembling thee!

Why are nature's beauties felt?

Oh! 'tis thine in her we see ! Why has music power to melt?

Oh! because it speaks like thee All that's sweet, by Love's decree, Has been made resembling theo

WRITTEN IN A COMMONPLACE BOOK,

CALLED

"THE BOOK OF FOLLIES;"

IN WHICH EVERY ONE THAT OPENED IT WAS TO CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING.

TO THE BOOK OF FOLLIES.

THIS tribute's from a wretched elf,
Who hails thee, emblem of himself.
The book of life, which I have traced,
Has been, like thee, a motley waste
Of follies scribbled o'er and o'er,
One folly bringing hundreds more.
Some have indeed been writ so neat,
In characters so fair, so sweet,
That those who judge not too severely,
Have said they loved such follies dearly:
Yet still, O book! the allusion stands;
For these were penn'd by female hands:
The rest-alas! I own the truth-
Have all been scribbled so uncouth
That Prudence, with a with'ring look,
Disdainful, flings away the book.
Like thine, its pages here and there

Have oft been stain'd with blots of care;
And sometimes hours of peace, I own,
Upon some fairer leaves have shone,
White as the snowings of that heav'n
By which those hours of peace were given.
But now no longer-such, oh, such
The blast of Disappointment's touch!-
No longer now those hours appear;
Each leaf is sullied by a tear:
Blank, blank is ev'ry page with care,
Not ev'n a folly brightens there.
Will they yet brighten ?-never, never!
Then shut the book, O God, forever!