Oh! I have thought, and thinking, sigh'd— How like to thee, thou restless tide! May be the lot, the life of him, Who roams along thy water's brim! Through what alternate shades of woe, And flowers of joy my path may go ! How many a humble still retreat May rise to court my weary feet, While still pursuing, still unblest, I wander on, nor dare to rest! But, urgent as the doom that calls Thy water to its destin'd falls, I see the world's bewildering force Hurry my heart's devoted course From lapse to lapse, till life be done, And the last current cease to run! Oh, may my falls be bright as thine! May Heaven's forgiving rainbow shine Upon the mist that circles me, As soft, as now it hangs o'er thee! Think'st thou, when JULIA's lip and breast I coldly spoke of lips unprest, No, no, the spell, that warm'd so long, And still the girl was paid, in song, Let me but feel a breath from thee, That rosy mouth alone can bring SONG OF THE EVIL SPIRIT OF THE WOODS.' Now the vapour, hot and damp, And the shuddering murderer sits,* 1 The idea of this poem occurred to me in passing through the very dreary wilderness between Batavia, a new settlement in the midst of the woods, and the little village of Buffalo upon Lake Erie. This is the most fatiguing part of the route, in travelling through the Genesee country to Niagara. 2 The Five Confederated Nations (of Indians) were settled along the banks of the Susquehanna and the adjacent country, until the year 1779, when General Sullivan, with an army of 4000 men, drove them from their country to Niagara, where, being obliged to live on salted provisions, to which they were unaccustomed, great numbers of them died. Two hundred of them, it is said, were buried in one grave, where they had encamped."-Morse's American Geography. 3 The alligator, who is supposed to lie in a torpid state all the winter, in the bank of some creek or pond, having pre viously swallowed a large number of pine-knots, which are his only sustenance during the time. 4 This was the mode of punishment for murder (as Father Charlevoix tells us) among the Hurons. "They laid the dead body upon poles at the top of a cabin, and the mur derer was obliged to remain several days together, and to receive all that dropped from the carcass, not only on himself but on his food." EPISTLES, ODES, ETC. Lone beneath a roof of blood, his poison'd food, While upon From the corpse of him he slew Hither bend you, turn you hither Eyes that blast and wings that wither! Cross the wandering Christian's way, Lead him, ere the glimpse of day, Many a mile of madd'ning error Through the maze of night and terror, Till the morn behold him lying O'er the damp earth, pale and dying! Mock him, when his eager sight Seeks the cordial cottage-light; Gleam then, like the lightning-bug, Tempt him to the den that's dug For the foul and famish'd brood Of the she-wolf, gaunt for blood! Or, unto the dangerous pass O'er the deep and dark morass, Where the trembling Indian brings Belts of porcelain, pipes, and rings, Tributes, to be hung in air To the Fiend presiding there!! Then, when night's long labour past, Wilder'd, faint, he falls at last, Sinking where the causeway's edge Moulders in the slimy sedge, There let every noxious thing Trail its filth and fix its sting; Let the bull-toad taint him over, Round him let musquitoes hover, In his ears and eye-balls tingling, With his blood their poison mingling, Till, beneath the solar fires, Rankling all, the wretch expires! Did ever Muse's hand, so fair A glory round thy temple spread? 1802. 1 "We find also collars of porcelain, tobacco, ears of maize, skins, etc. by the side of difficult and dangerous ways, on rocks, or by the side of the falls; and these are so many offerings made to the spirits which preside in these places." See Charlevoix's Letter on the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada. Father Hennepin too mentions this ceremony; he also says, "We took notice of one barbarian, who made a kind of sacrifice upon an oak at the Cascade of St. Antony of Padua, upon the river Mississippi." See Hennepin's Voyage into North America. Did ever lip's ambrosial air Such perfume o'er thy altars shed? One maid there was, who round her lyre The mystic myrtle wildly wreath'dBut all her sighs were sighs of fire, The myrtle wither'd as she breath'd' Oh! you that love's celestial dream, Too strongly through the vision glow! Love sweetest lies, conceal'd in night, The night where Heaven has bid him lie; Oh! shed not there unhallowed light, Or PSYCHE knows, the boy will fly !! Dear PSYCHE ! many a charmed hour, Where'er thy joys are number'd now, The Genius of the starry brow3 Whether above the horizon dim, Along whose verge our spirits stray, (Half sunk within the shadowy brim, Half brighten'd by the eternal ray.)4 Thou risest to a cloudless pole ! Or, lingering here, dost love to mark The twilight walk of many a soul Through sunny good and evil dark; Still be the song to PSYCHE dear, As nectar keeps her soul in heaven! 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 "Össervazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi antichi." He thinks the fable is taken from some very occult mysteries, which had long been celebrated in honour of Love; and he 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, he observes, we find Lucian and Plutarch treating, without reserve, of the Dea Syria, and Isis and Osiris; and Apuleius, who has given us the 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. 1. p. 156. I cannot avoid remarking here an error into which the French Encyclopédistes have been led by M. Spon, in their 2 Allusions to Mrs. T-ghe's poem. 4 By this image the Platonists expressed the middle state of the soul between sensible and intellectual existence. IMPROMPTU, UPON LEAVING SOME FRIENDS. O dulces comitum valete cœtus-Catullus. No, never shall my soul forget The friends I found so cordial-hearted; Dear shall be the day we met, And dear shall be the night we parted! Oh! if regrets, however sweet, Must with the lapse of time decay, Yet still, when thus in mirth you meet, Fill high to him that's far away! Long be the flame of memory found, Alive-when with your social glass, Let that be still the magic round, O'er which oblivion dares not pass EPISTLE VIII. TO THE HONOURABLE W. R. SPENCER, Neo venit ad duros musa vocata getas. FROM BUFFALO UPON LAKE ERIE THOU oft hast told me of the fairy hours All that creation's varying mass assumes 1 This epithet was suggested by Charlevoix's striking description of the confluence of the Missouri with the Missis Mind, mind alone, without whose quickening ray Is this the region then, is this the clime Yet, yet forgive me, oh, you sacred few! If, neither chain'd by choice, nor damn'd by fate sippi. "I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. The two rivers are much of the same breadth, each about half a league; but the Missouri is by far the most rapid, and seems to enter the Mississippi like a conqueror, through which it carries its white waves to the opposite shore without mixing them: afterwards it gives its colour to the Mississippi, which it never loses again, but carries quite down to the sea."-Letter xxvii. 1 In the society of Mr. Dennie and his friends, at Phila delphia, I passed the few agreeable moments which my ton through the States afforded me. Mr. Dennie has succeeded in diffusing through this elegant little circle that love for good literature and sound politics, which he feels so zealously himself, and which is so very rarely the characteristic of his countrymen. They will not, I trust, accuse me of illiberality for the picture which I have given of the ignorance and corruption that surround them. If I did not hate, as I ought, the rabble to which they are opposed, I could not value, as I do, the spirit with which they defy it; and, in learning from them what Americans can be, I but see with the more indignation what Americans are To the mob-mania which imbrues her now, She yet can rise, can wreath the attic charms Her fruits would fall, before her spring were o'er! Believe me, SPENCER, while I wing'd the hours Where Schuylkill undulates through banks of flow ers, Though few the days, the happy evenings few, Ω ΠΑΤΡΙΣ, ΩΣ ΣΟΥ ΚΑΡΤΑ ΝΥΝ ΜΝΕΙΑΝ ΕΧΩ. Euripides. A WARNING ΤΟ On! fair as Heaven and chaste as light! No, no-a star was born with thee, In lines of fire such heavenly lore, That man should read them and adore! Yet have I known a gentle maid For Destiny's peculiar care! Whose bosom too was once a zone, Yet, hapless girl, in one sad hour, Her charms have shed their radiant flower To tell the traveller, as he cross'd, ΤΟ Tis time, I feel, to leave thee now, Oh! thou art every instant dearer Every chance that brings me nigh thee, Nay, if thou dost not scorn and hate me, Oh! that eye would blast them all! Yes, yes, it would for thou'rt as cold That eye but once would smile on me, Good Heaven! how much, how far beyond Fame, duty, hope, that smile would be! Oh! but to win it, night and day, Inglorious at thy feet reclin'd, I'd sigh my dreams of fame away, The world for thee forgot, resign'd! But no, no, no-farewell-we part, FROM THE HIGH PRIEST OF APOLLO, TO Cum digno digna.—Sulpicia. "Who is the maid, with golden hair, The arch of heaven, and grandly sheds Aphelia is the Delphic fair,2 With eyes of fire and golden hair, And hers the harp divinely sweet; For foot so light has never trod Cannot, in all his course, behold For her, for her he quits the skies, To kiss the sod where lovers lay! And the dim orb of lunar souls2 "Tell the imperial God, who reigns, 1 The Corycian Cave, which Pausanias mentions. The inhabitants of Parnassus held it sacred to the Corycian nymphs, who were children of the river Plistus. 2 See a preceding note, page 119. It should seem that lunar spirits were of a purer order than spirits in general, as Pythagoras was said by his followers to have descended from the regions of the moon. The heresiarch Manes too imagined that the sun and moon are the residence of Christ, and that the ascension was nothing more than his flight to those orbs. 1 This poem requires a little explanation. It is well kr.own that, in the ancient temples, whenever a reverend. priest, like the supposed author of the invitation before us, was inspired with a tender inclination towards any fair visitor of the shrine, and, at the same time, felt a diffidence in his own powers of persuasion, he had but to proclaim that the God himself was enamoured of her, and had signified his divine will that she should sleep in the interior of the temple. Many a pious husband connived at this divine assignation, and even declared himself proud of the selection, with which his family had been distinguished by the deity. In the temple of Jupiter Belus, there was a splendid bed for these occasions. In Egyptian Thebes the same mockery was practised, and at the oracle of Patara in Lycia, the priestess never could prophesy till an interview with 3 The temple of Jupiter Belus at Babylon, which conthe deity was allowed her. The story which we read insisted of several chapels and towers. "In the last tower Josephus (Lib. xviii. cap. 3.) of the Roman matron Paulina, (says Herodotus) is a large chapel, in which there lies a bed, whom the priests of Isis, for a bribe, betrayed in this mammer very splendidly ornamented, and beside it a table of gold; to Mundus, is a singular instance of the impudent excess to but there is no statue in the place. No man is allowed to which credulity suffered these impostures to be carried. sleep here, but the apartment is appropriated to a female, This story has been put into the form of a little novel, under whom, if we believe the Chaldean priests, the deity selects the name of "La Pudicitia Schernita," by the licentious from the women of the country, as his favourite."-Lib. i and unfortunate Pallavicino. See his Opere Scelte, tom. i. cap. 181. I have made my priest here prefer a cave to the temple. 2 In the 9th Pythic of Pindar, where Apollo, in the same manner, requires of Chiron some information respecting the fair Cyrene, the Centaur, in obeying, very gravely apologizes for teiling the god what his omniscience must know so perfectly already: Ει δε γε χρη και παρ σοφον αντιφέρίξαι 3 Αλλ' εις δαφνωδη γυαλα βήσομαι ταδε. Euripid. Ion. v. 76. 4 Ne deve partorir ammiratione ch' egli si pregiasse di naver una Deità concorrente nel possesso della moglie; mentre, anche, nei nostri secoli, non ostante così rigorose egge d'onore, trovasi chi s'ascrive à gloria il veder la moglie honorata da gl' amplessi di un Principe.-Pallavicino. The poem now before the reader, and a few more in the present collection, are taken from a work, which I rather prematurely announced to the public, and which, perhaps very luckily for myself, was interrupted by my voyage to America. The following fragments from the same work describe the effect of one of these invitations of Apollo upon the mind of a young enthusiastic girl:-- Delphi heard her shrine proclaim, |