But oh! Bright Hebe, what a tear, And what a blush were thine, When, as the breath of every Grace Wafted thy feet along the studded sphere, With a bright cup for Jove himself to drink, Some star, that shone beneath thy tread, Raising its amorous head To kiss those matchless feet, Checked thy career too fleet; And all heaven's host of eyes Entranced, but fearful all, Saw thee, sweet Hebe, prostrate fall Upon the bright floor of the azure skies; 1 Where, mid its stars, thy beauty lay, Lies mid the liquid sparkles of the morn. The wanton wind, Now, as she fell, oh wanton breeze! The brow of Juno flushed And every cheek was hid behind a lyre, While every eye looked laughing through the strings. But the bright cup? the nectared draught Which Jove himself was to have quaffed? 1 It is Servius, I believe, who mentions this unlucky trip which Hebe made in her occupation of cup-bearer; and Hoffman tells it after him: cum Hebe pocula Jovi administrans, perque lubricum minus cauté incedens, cecidisset," etc. 2 The arcane symbols of this ceremony were deposited in the cista, where they lay religiously concealed from the eyes of the profane. They were generally carried in the procession by an ass; and hence the proverb, which one may so often apply in the world, "asinus portat mysteria. See "the Divine Legation," book ii. sect. 4. Fell glowing through the spheres; While all around new tints of bliss, New odors and new light, Enriched its radiant flow. Now, with a liquid kiss, It stole along the thrilling wire Of Heaven's luminous Lyre, Stealing the soul of music in its flight: And now, amid the breezes bland, That whisper from the planets as they roll, The bright libation, softly fanned By all their sighs, meandering stole. They who, from Atlas' height, Beheld this rosy flame Descending through the waste of night, Thought 't was some planet, whose empyreal frame Had kindled, as it rapidly revolved Around its fervid axle, and dissolved Into a flood so bright! 3 In the "Geoponica," lib. ii. cap. 17, there is a fable somewhat like this descent of the nectar to earth. ἐν οὐρανῷ τῶν θεῶν εὐωχουμένων, καὶ τοῦ νέκταρος πολλοῦ παρακειμένου, ἀνασκιρ τῆσαι χορεία τὸν Ερωτα καὶ συσσεῖσαι τῷ πτερῷ τοῦ κρατῆρος τὴν βάσιν, καὶ περιτρέψαι μὲν αὐτὸν τὸ δὲ νέκταρ εἰς τὴν γῆν ἐκχυθεν, K.T.λ. Vid. Autor. de" Re Rust." edit Cantab. 1704. 4 The constellation Lyra. The astrologers attribute great virtues to this sign in ascendenti, which are enumerated by Pontano, in his "Urania: — ecce novem cum pectine chordas emodulans, mulcetque novo vaga sidera cantu, quo capte nascentum animæ concordia ducunt pectora, etc. 1 The Egyptians represented the dawn of day by a young boy seated upon a lotos. eire Aiyuπτους ἑωρακὼς ἀρχὴν ἀνατολῆς παιδίον νεογνόν γράφοντας ἐπὶ λωτῷ καθεζόμενον, - Plutarch. περὶ τοῦ μὴ χρᾶν ἐμμέτρ. See also his Treatise "de Isid. et Osir." Observing that the lotos showed its head above water at sunrise, and sank again at his setting, they conceived the idea of consecrating this flower to Osiris, or the sun. This symbol of a youth sitting upon a lotos is very frequent on the Abraxases, or Basilidian stones. See Montfaucon, tom. ii. planche 158, and the "Supplement," etc. tom. ii. lib. vii. chap. 5. 2 The ancients esteemed those flowers and trees the sweetest upon which the rainbow had appeared to rest; and the wood they chiefly burned in sacrifices, was that which the smile of "That little ring which, night and morn, "With wedded truth my hand hath worn; "That seal which oft, in moments blest, "Thou hast upon my lip imprest, "And sworn its sacred spring should be "A fountain sealed for only thee: "Take, take them back, the gift and vow, "All sullied, lost and hateful now!'' I took the ring- - the seal I took, While, oh, her every tear and look Were such as angels look and shed, When man is by the world misled. Gently I whispered, "Fanny, dear! "Not half thy lover's gifts are here: Say, where are all the kisses given, "From morn to noon, from noon to even, 66 "Those signets of true love, worth more "Than Solomon's own seal of yore, "Where are those gifts, so sweet, so many? 66 Come, dearest, give back all, if any." While thus I whispered, trembling too, Lest all the nymph had sworn was true, I saw a smile relenting rise Mid the moist azure of her eyes, Like daylight o'er a sea of blue, While yet in mid-air hangs the dew. She let her cheek repose on mine, She let my arms around her twine; One kiss was half allowed, and thenThe ring and seal were hers again. TO MISS SUSAN BECKFORD.* ON HER SINGING. I MORE than once have heard at night A song like those thy lip hath given, Iris had consecrated. Plutarch. "Sympos." lib. iv. cap. 2, where (as Vossius remarks) kaiovσi, instead of Kakovo, is undoubtedly the genuine reading. See Vossius, for some curious particu larities of the rainbow," De Origin, et Progress. Idololat." lib. iii. cap. 13. 3" There are gardens, supposed to be those of King Solomon, in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem. The friars show a fountain, which, they say, is the sealed fountair' to which the holy spouse in the Canticles is compared; and they pretend a tradition, that Solomon shut up these springs and put his signet upon the door, to keep them for his own drinking." Maundrell's Travels. See also the notes to Mr. Good's Translation of the Song of Solomon. 4 Afterward Duchess of Hamilton. And it was sung by shapes of light, Who looked and breathed, like thee, of heaven. But this was all a dream of sleep, And I have said when morning shone: "Why should the night-witch, Fancy, keep "These wonders for herself alone?" I knew not then that fate had lent Such tones to one of mortal birth; I knew not then that Heaven had sent A voice, a form like thine on earth. And yet, in all that flowery maze Through which my path of life has led, When I have heard the sweetest lays From lips of rosiest lustre shed; When I have felt the warbled word From Beauty's lip, in sweetness vying With music's own melodious bird, When on the rose's bosom lying; Though form and song at once combined Their loveliest bloom and softest thrill, My heart hath sighed, my ear hath pined For something lovelier, softer still: Oh, I have found it all, at last, In thee, thou sweetest living lyre, Through which the soul of song e'er past, Or feeling breathed its sacred fire. All that I e'er, in wildest flight Of fancy's dreams, could hear or see Of music's sigh or beauty's light Is realized, at once, in thee! IMPROMPTU, ON 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. If fond 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 light of memory found ΤΟ OH fair as heaven and chaste as light! O'er languid virtue's fatal sleep, 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, In lines of light such heavenly lore, That man should read them and adore. Yet have I known a gentle maid Whose mind and form were both arrayed In nature's purest light, like thine; Who wore that clear, celestial sign, Which seems to mark the brow that 's fair For destiny's peculiar care: Whose bosom too, like Dian's own, Was guarded by a sacred zone, Where the bright gem of virtue shone; Whose eyes had in their light a charm Against all wrong and guile and harm. Yet, hapless maid, in one sad hour These spells have lost their guardian The venerable man; 1 a healthy bloom Mingled its softness with the vigorous thought 1 In Plutarch's Essay on the Decline of the Oracles, Cleombrotus, one of the interlocutors, describes an extraordinary man whom he had met with, after long research, upon the banks of the Red Sea. Once in every year this supernatural personage appeared to mortals, and conversed with them; the rest of his time he passed among the Genii and the Nymphs, περὶ την Ερυθρὰν Θάλασσαν εὗρον, ἀνθρώποις ἀνὰ πᾶν έτος άπαξ ἐντυγχάνοντα, τ' άλλα δὲ σὺν ταῖς νύμφαις, νόμασι καὶ δαίμοσι, ὡς ἔφασκε, He spoke in a tone not far removed from singing, and whenever he opened his lips, a fragrance filled the place: φθεγγομένου δὲ τον τόπον εὐωδια κατείχε, του στόματος ήδιστον ἀποπνέοντος, From him Cleombrotus learned the doctrine of a plurality of worlds. That towered upon his brow; and when he spoke w 'T was language sweetened into song such holy sounds As oft, they say, the wise and virtuous hear, Prelusive to the harmony of heaven, When death is nigh; and still, as he unclosed His sacred lips, an odor, all as bland With silent awe we listened, while he told Of the dark veil which many an age had hung O'er Nature's form, till, long explored by man, The mystic shroud grew thin and lumi 3 Cham, the son of Noah, is supposed to have taken with him into the ark the principal doctrines of magical, or rather of natural, science, which he had inscribed upon some very durable substances, in order that they might resist the ravages of the deluge, and transmit the secrets of antediluvian knowledge to his posterity. See the extracts made by Bayle, in his article, Cham. The identity of Cham and Zoroaster depends upon the authority of Berosus (or rather the impostor Annius), and a few more such respectable testimonies. See Naude's "Apologie pour les Grands Hommes," etc., chap. viii., where he takes more trouble than is necessary in refuting this gratuitous supposition. 4 Chamum à posteris hujus artis admiratoribus Zoroastrum, seu vivum astrum, propterea fuisse dictum et pro Deo habitum. — Bochart, Geograph. Sacr.” lib. iv. cap. 1. 5 Orpheus. - Paulinus, in his "Hebdom ades," cap. 2. lib. iii. has endeavored to show, after the Platonists, that man is a diapason, or octave, made up of a diatesseron, which is his soul, and a diapente, which is his body. Those frequent allusions to music, by which the ancient philosophers illustrated their sublime theories, must have tended very much to elevate the character of the art, and to enrich it with associations of the grandest and most interesting nature. See a preceding note, for their ideas upon the harmony of the spheres. Heraciitus compared the mixture of good and evil in this world, to the blended varieties of harmony in a musical instrument (Plutarch, "de Anime Procreat."); and Euryphamus, the Pythagorean, in a fragment preserved by Stobæus, describes human life, in its perfection, as a sweet and well tuned lyre. Some of the ancients were so fanciful as to suppose that the operations of the memory were regulated by a kind of musical cadence, and that ideas occurred to it "per arsin et thesin," while others converted the whole man into a mere harmonized machine, whose motion depended upon a certain tension of the body, analogous to that of the strings in an instrument. Cicero indeed ridicules Aristoxenus for this fancy, and says, "Let him teach singing, and leave philosophy to Aristotle; but Aristotle himself, though decidedly opposed to the harmonic speculations of the Pythagoreans and Platonists, could sometimes condescend to enliven his doctrines by reference to the beauties of musical science; as, in the treatise "nepi kоσμov" attributed to him, καθάπερ δὲ ἐν χόρῳ, κορυφαίου κατάρξαντος, κ. τ. λ. The Abbé Batteux, in his inquiry into the doctrine of the Stoics, attributes to those philosophers the same mode of illustration. "L'ame Htoit cause active ποιεῖν αἴτιος ; le corps cause passive nde rov máσxew: l'une agissant dans Pautre; et y prenant, par son action même, un caractère, des formes, des modifications, qu'elle n'avoit pas par elle-même; à peu près comme l'air, qui, chassé dans un instrument de musique, fait connoître, par les différens sons qu'il pro duit, les différentes modifications qu'il y reçoit. See a fine simile founded upon this notion in Cardinal Polignac's poem, lib. 5. v. 734. 6 Pythagoras is represented in Iamblichus as descending with great solemnity from Mount |