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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
Inspir'd my youthful tongue,

I coldly spoke of lips unprest,
Nor felt the heaven I sung?

No, no, the spell, that warm'd so long,
Was still my JULIA's kiss,

And still the girl was paid, in song,
What she had giv'n in bliss!
Then beam one burning smile on me,
And I will sing those eyes;

Let me but feel a breath from thee,
And I will praise thy sighs.

That rosy mouth alone can bring
What makes the bard divine-
Oh, Lady! how my lip would sing,
If once 'twere prest to thine!

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SONG

OF THE EVIL SPIRIT OF THE WOODS.'
Qua via difficilis, quaque est via nulla....
Ovid. Metam. Lib. iii. v. 227.

Now the vapour, hot and damp,
Shed by day's expiring lamp,
Through the misty ether spreads
Every ill the white man dreads: ;
Fiery fever's thirsty thrill,
Fitful ague's shivering chill!
Hark! I hear the traveller's song,
As he winds the woods along,
Christian! 'tis the song of fear;
Wolves are round thee, night is near,
And the wild thou dar'st to roam-
Oh! 'twas once the Indian's home!"
Hither, sprites, who love to harm,
Wheresoe'er you work your charm,
By the creeks, or by the brakes,
Where the pale witch feeds her snakes,
And the cayman3 loves to creep,
Torpid, to his wintry sleep :
Where the bird of carrion flits,

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
Drops the chill and gory dew!

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!

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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,
In all its purity, would know,
Let not the senses' ardent beam,

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,
Through many a wild and magic waste,
To the fair fount and blissful bower2
Thy mazy foot my soul hath trac'd!

Where'er thy joys are number'd now,
Beneath whatever shades of rest,

The Genius of the starry brow3
Hath chain'd thee to thy Cupid's breast;

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,
The song, whose dulcet tide was given
To keep her name as fadeless here,

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
article Psyche. They say, Petron fait un récit de la
See Spon's Recherches
pompe nuptiale de ces deux amans (Amour et Psyché.)
Déjà, dit-il," etc. etc. The Psyche of Petronius, however,
that of the young Pannychis.
is a servant-maid, and the marriage which he describes is
Curieuses, etc. Dissertat. 5.

2 Allusions to Mrs. T-ghe's poem.
3 Constancy.

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.
Ovid ex Ponto, Lib. i. ep. 5.

FROM BUFFALO UPON LAKE ERIE

THOU oft hast told me of the fairy hours
Thy heart has number'd in those classic bowers,
Where fancy sees the ghost of ancient wit
'Mid cowls and cardinals profanely flit,
And pagan spirits, by the pope unlaid,
Haunt every stream and sing through every shade!
There still the bard, who, (if his numbers be
His tongue's light echo,) must have talk'd like thee,
The courtly bard, from whom thy mind has caught
Those playful, sunshine holidays of thought
In which the basking soul reclines and glows,
Warm without toil and brilliant in repose.
There still he roves, and laughing loves to see
How modern monks with ancient rakes agree;
How mitres hang, where ivy wreaths might twine,
And heathen Massic 's damn'd for stronger wine!
There too are all those wandering souls of song,
With whom thy spirit hath commun'd so long,
Whose rarest gems are, every instant, hung
By memory's magic on thy sparkling tongue.
But here, alas! by Erie's stormy lake,
As far from thee, my lonely course I take,
No bright remembrance o'er the fancy plays,
No classic dream, no star of other days
Has left that visionary glory here,
That relic of its light, so soft, so dear,
Which gilds and hallows even the rudest scene,
The humblest shed, where genius once has been!

All that creation's varying mass assumes
Of grand or lovely, here aspires and blooms;
Bold rise the mountains, rich the gardens glow,
Bright lakes expand, and conquering' rivers flow;

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
The world's a wilderness, and man but clay,
Mind, mind alone, in barren, still repose,
Nor blooms, nor rises, nor expands, nor flows!
Take Christians, Mohawks, Democrats and all
From the rude wigwam to the congress-hall,
From man the savage, whether slav'd or free,
To man the civiliz'd, less tame than he!
'Tis one dull chaos, one unfertile strife
Betwixt half-polish'd and half-barbarous life;
Where every ill the ancient world can brew
Is mix'd with every grossness of the new;
Where all corrupts though little can entice,
And nothing's known of luxury, but vice!

Is this the region then, is this the clime
For golden fancy? for those dreams sublime,
Which all their miracles of light reveal
To heads that meditate and hearts that feel?
No, no-the muse of inspiration plays
O'er every scene; she walks the forest-maze,
And climbs the mountain; every blooming spot
Burns with her step, yet man regards it not!
She whispers round, her words are in the air,
But lost, unheard, they linger freezing there,
Without one breath of soul, divinely strong,
One ray of heart to thaw them into song!

Yet, yet forgive me, oh, you sacred few!
Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew,
Whom, known and lov'd through many a social eve
'Twas bliss to live with, and 'twas pain to leave!'
Less dearly welcome were the lines of yore
The exile saw upon the sandy shore,
When his lone heart but faintly hop'd to find
One print of man, one blessed stamp of mind!
Less dearly welcome than the liberal zeal,
The strength to reason and the warmth to feel,
The manly polish and the illumin'd taste,
Which, 'mid the melancholy, heartless waste
My foot has wander'd, oh you sacred few!
I found by Delaware's green banks with you.
Long may you hate the Gallic dross that runs
O'er your fair country and corrupts its sons;
Long love the arts, the glories which adorn
Those fields of freedom, where your sires were born
Oh! if America can yet be great,

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 raise the bright but temperate brow
Of single majesty, can grandly place
An empire's pillar upon freedom's base,
Nor fear the mighty shaft will feebler prove
For the fair capital that flowers above?—
If yet, releas'd from all that vulgar throng,
So vain of dulness and so pleas'd with wrong,
Who hourly teach her, like themselves, to hide
Folly in froth, and barrenness in pride,

She yet can rise, can wreath the attic charms
Of soft refinement round the pomp of arms,
And see her poets flash the fires of song,
To light her warriors' thunderbolts along!
It is to you, to souls that favouring Heaven
Has made like yours, the glorious task is given-
Oh, but for such, Columbia's days were done;
Rank without ripeness, quicken'd without sun,
Crude at the surface, rotten at the core,

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,
So warm with heart, so rich with mind they flew,
That my full soul forgot its wish to roam,
And rested there, as in a dream of home!
And looks I met, like looks I lov'd before,
And voices too, which, as they trembled o'er
The chord of memory, found full many a tone
Of kindness there in concord with their own!
Oh! we had nights of that communion free,
That flush of heart, which I have known with thee
So oft, so warmly; nights of mirth and mind,
Of whims that taught, and follies that refin'd;
When shall we both renew them? when restor❜d
To the pure feast and intellectual board,
Shall I once more enjoy with thee and thine
Those whims that teach, those follies that refine?
Even now, as wandering upon Erie's shore,
I hear Niagara's distant cataract roar,
I sigh for England-oh! these weary feet
Have many a mile to journey, ere we meet!

Ω ΠΑΤΡΙΣ, ΩΣ ΣΟΥ ΚΑΡΤΑ ΝΥΝ ΜΝΕΙΑΝ ΕΧΩ. Euripides.

A WARNING ΤΟ

On! fair as Heaven and chaste as light!
Did Nature mould thee all so bright,
That thou shouldst ever learn to weep
O'er languid Virtue's fatal sleep,
O'er shame extinguish'd, honour fled,
Peace lost, heart wither'd, feeling dead?

No, no-a star was born with thee,
Which sheds eternal purity!
Thou hast, within those sainted eyes,
So fair a transcript of the skies,
S

In lines of fire such heavenly lore, That man should read them and adore!

Yet have I known a gentle maid
Whose early charms were just array'd
In nature's loveliness like thine,
And wore that clear, celestial sign,
Which seems to mark the brow that's fair

For Destiny's peculiar care!

Whose bosom too was once a zone,
Where the bright gem of virtue shone
Whose eyes were talismans of fire
Against the spell of man's desire!

Yet, hapless girl, in one sad hour,

Her charms have shed their radiant flower
The gem has been beguil'd away;
Her eyes have lost their chastening ray;
The simple fear, the guiltless shame,
The smiles that from reflection came,
All, all have fled, and left her mind
A faded monument behind!
Like some wave-beaten, mouldering stone
To memory rais'd by hands unknown,
Which, many a wintry hour, has stood,
Beside the ford of Tyra's flood,

To tell the traveller, as he cross'd,
That there some loved friend was lost!
Oh! 'twas a sight I wept to see-
Heaven keep the lost-one's fate from thee!

ΤΟ

Tis time, I feel, to leave thee now,
While yet my soul is something free;
While yet those dangerous eyes allow
One moment's thought to stray from thee'

Oh! thou art every instant dearer

Every chance that brings me nigh thee,
Brings my ruin nearer, nearer:
I am lost, unless I fly thee!

Nay, if thou dost not scorn and hate me,
Wish me not so soon to fall,
Duties, fame, and hopes await me,

Oh! that eye would blast them all!

Yes, yes, it would for thou'rt as cold
As ever yet allur'd or sway'd,
And would'st, without a sigh, behold
The ruin which thyself had made!
Yet-could I think that, truly fond,

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,
Never to meet, no, never, never ⚫
Oh, woman! what a mind and heart
Thy coldness has undone for ever!

FROM THE HIGH PRIEST OF APOLLO, TO
A VIRGIN OF DELPHI.'

Cum digno digna.—Sulpicia.

"Who is the maid, with golden hair,
With eyes of fire and feet of air,
Whose harp around my altar swells
The sweetest of a thousand shells?"
'Twas thus the deity, who treads

The arch of heaven, and grandly sheds
Day from his eye-lids!—thus he spoke,
As through my cell his glories broke.
"Who is the maid, with golden hair,
With eyes of fire and feet of air,
Whose harp around my altar swells,
The sweetest of a thousand shells?"

Aphelia is the Delphic fair,2

With eyes of fire and golden hair,
Aphelia's are the airy feet,

And hers the harp divinely sweet;

For foot so light has never trod
The laurel'd caverns3 of the god,
Nor harp so soft has ever given
A strain to earth or sigh to heaven.
"Then tell the virgin to unfold,
In looser pomp, her locks of gold,
And bid those eyes with fonder fire
Be kindled for a god's desire;4
Since He, who lights the path of years-
Even from the fount of morning's tears,
To where his sitting splendours burn
Upon the western sea-maid's urn-

Cannot, in all his course, behold
Such eyes of fire, such hair of gold!
Tell her, he comes, in blissful pride,
His lip yet sparkling with the tide,
That mantles in Olympian bowls,
The nectar of eternal souls!

For her, for her he quits the skies,
And to her kiss from nectar flies.
Oh! he would hide his wreath of rays,
And leave the world to pine for days,
Might he but pass the hours of shade,
Imbosom'd by his Delphic maid-
She, more than earthly woman blest,
He, more than god on woman's breast!"
There is a cave beneath the steep,'
Where living rills of crystal weep
O'er herbage of the loveliest hue
That ever spring begem'd with dew:
There oft the green bank's glossy tint
Is brighten'd by the amorous print
Of many a faun and naiad's form,
That still upon the dew is warm,
When virgins come, at peep of day,

To kiss the sod where lovers lay!

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And the dim orb of lunar souls2
Along its shadowy path-way rolls-
There shall we find our bridal bed,
And ne'er did rosy rapture spread,
Not even in Jove, voluptuous bowers,
A bridal bed so blest as ours!"

"Tell the imperial God, who reigns,
Sublime in oriental fanes,
Whose towering turrets paint their pride
Upon Euphrates' pregnant tide;"
Tell him, when to his midnight loves
In mystic majesty he moves,

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
Eesw

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,
In oracles, the guilty flame.
Apollo lov'd my youthful charms,
Apollo woo'd me to his arms!-
Sure, sure when man so oft allows
Religion's wreath to blind his brows,
Weak wondering woman must believe,
Where pride and zeal at once deceive.

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