TRANSLATION FROM THE MEDEA OF EURIPIDES. WHEN fierce conflicting passions urge Can rouse the tortured breast no more; But if affection gently thrills The soul by purer dreams possest, In love can soothe the aching breast: If thus thou comest in disguise, Fair Venus! from thy native heaven, What heart unfeeling would despise The sweetest boon the gods have given? But never from thy golden bow May I beneath the shaft expire! May no distracting thoughts destroy May I with some fond lover sigh, Whose heart may mingle pure with mineWith me to live, with me to die! My native soil! beloved before, May I resign this fleeting breath! Have I not heard the exile's sigh, No friend thy wretched fate deplores, No kindred voice with rapture hails Perish the fiend whose iron heart, To fair affection's truth unknown, Bids her he fondly loved depart, Unpitied, helpless, and alone; Who ne'er unlocks with silver key - The milder treasures of his soul, -- And ocean's storms between us roll. THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY A COLLEGE EXAMINATION. HIGH in the midst, surrounded by his peers, Happy the youth in Euclid's axioms tried, What, though he knows not how his fathers bled, Can tell what edicts sage Lycurgus made, While Blackstone's on the shelf neglected laid; Of Grecian dramas vaunts the deathless fame, Of Avon's bard remembering scarce the name. Such is the youth whose scientific pate A manner clear or warm is useless, since We speak to please ourselves, not move the crowd: Our gravity prefers the muttering tone, A proper mixture of the squeak and groan: No borrowed grace of action must be seen; The slightest motion would displease the Dean; While every staring graduate would prate Against what he could never imitate. The man who hopes t' obtain the promised cup Must in one posture stand, and ne'er look up; Nor stop, but rattle over every word Not matter what, so it can not be heard. Thus let him hurry on, nor think to rest; Who speaks the fastest's sure to speak the best; Who utters most within the shortest space, May safely hope to win the wordy race. The sons of science these, who, thus repaid, Linger in ease in Granta's sluggish shade; Where on Cam's sedgy banks supine they lie Unknown- unhonored live, unwept-for die: Dull as the pictures which adorn their halls, They think all learning fixed within their walls: In manners rude, in foolish forms precise, All modern arts affecting to despise ; Yet prizing BENTLEY'S, BRUNCK's, or PORSON'S note, More than the verse on which the critic wrote: Vain as their honors, heavy as their ale, Sad as their wit, and tedious as their tale; |