Yet your Chrysostom, you praised him, With his glorious mouth of gold- And your Basil, you upraised him To the height of speaker old: And we both praised Heliodorus For his secret of pure lies !- Who forged first his linked stories In the heat of lady's eyes.
Do you mind that deed of Até, Which you bound me to so fast,- Reading De Virginitate,'
From the first line to the last? How I said at ending, solemn,
As I turn'd and look'd at you, That St. Simeon on the column Had had somewhat less to do?
Ah, my gossip! you were older, And more learned, and a man! Yet that shadow, the unfolder
Of your quiet eyelids, -ran Both our spirits to one level;
And I turn'd from hill and lea And the summer-sun's green revel,- To your eyes that could not see.
Now Christ bless you with the one light Which goes shining night and day! May the flowers which grow in sunlight Shed their fragrance in your way! Is it not right to remember
All your kindness, friend of mine- When we too sat in the chamber, And the poets found us wine?
So, to come back to the drinking Of this Cyprus !—it is well- But those memories, to my thinking, Make a bitter œnomel:
And whoever be the speaker, None can murmur with a sigh- That, in drinking from that beaker, I am sipping like a fly!
THE APPARITION OF HIS MISTRESS CALLING HIM TO
By ROBERT HERRICK, one of our oldest and truest poets.
COME, then, and like two doves with silvery wings, Let our souls fly to the shades where even springs, Sit smiling in the meads; where balm and oil, Roses and cassia crown the untill'd soil; Where no disease reigns, or infection comes To blast the air, but ambergris and gums. This, that, and every thicket doth transpire More sweet than storax from the hallow'd fire, Where every tree a wealthy issue bears Of fragrant apples, blushing plums, and pears; And all the shrubs, with sparkling spangles show Like morning sunshine tinselling the dew. Here in green meadows sits eternal May, Purfling the margents, while perpetual day So double gilds the air, as that no night Can ever rust the enamel of the light: Here naked younglings, handsome striplings run Their goals for virgins' kisses; which, when done, Then unto dancing forth the learned round Commix'd they meet, with endless roses crown'd, And here we'll sit on primrose banks, and see Loves' chorus led by Cupid; and we'll be Two loving followers, too, unto the grove, Where poets sing the stories of our love: There shalt thou hear divine Museus sing Of Hero and Leander; then I'll bring Thee to the stand, where honour'd Homer reads His Odes and his high Iliads;
About whose throne the crowd of poets throng To hear the incantation of his tongue :
To Linus then to Pindar; and that done, I'll bring thee, Herrick, to Anacreon,
Quaffing his full-crown'd bowls of burning wine, And in his rapture speaking lines of thine.
Then stately Virgil, witty Ovid, by Whom fair Corinna sits, and doth comply With ivory wrists his laureate head, and steeps His eye in dews of kisses while he sleeps; Then soft Catullus, sharp-fang'd Martial, And towering Lucan, Horace, Juvenal, And snaky Perseus :
Beaumont and Fletcher, swains to whom all ears Listen, while they like syrens in their spheres, Sing their Evadne; and still more for thee There yet remains to know than thou canst see By glimmering of a fancy do but come, And there I'll show you that capacious room In which thy father Jonson now is placed, As in a globe of radiant fire, and graced To be in that orb crown'd, that doth include Those prophets of the former magnitude, And he one chief.
A passage in SHELLEY's poem, Ianthe.
How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep! One, pale as yonder waning moon, With lips of lurid blue;
The other, rosy as the morn When throned on ocean's wave, It blushes o'er the world: Yet both so passing wonderful!
Hath then the gloomy power Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres Seized on her sinless soul?
Must then that peerless form
Which love and admiration cannot view Without a beating heart, those azure veins Which steal like streams along a field of snow, That lovely outline, which is fair
As breathing marble, perish? Must putrefaction's breath
Leave nothing of this heavenly sight But loathsomeness and ruin? Spare nothing but a gloomy theme, On which the lightest heart might moralize?
Or is it only a sweet slumber Stealing o'er sensation, Which the breath of roseate morning Chaseth into darkness? Will Ianthe wake again,
And give that faithful bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life, and rapture, from her smile?
Yes! she will wake again, Although her glowing limbs are motionless, And silent those sweet lips,
Once breathing eloquence That might have soothed a tiger's rage, Or thaw'd the cold heart of a conqueror. Her dewy eyes are closed,
And on their lids, whose texture fine Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath, The baby sleep is pillow'd:
Her golden tresses shade
The bosom's stainless pride,
Curling like tendrils of the parasite
Around a marble column.
From The Lover's Melancholy, a tragedy, by JOHN FORD, one of the dramatists of Elizabeth's reign.
Amethus. This little isle of Cyprus sure abounds In greater wonders, both for change and fortune, Than any you have seen abroad. Menaphon. Than any
I have observed abroad! all countries else To a free eye and mind yield something rare; And I, for my part, have brought home one jewel Of admirable virtue.
Amet. Jewel, Menaphon?
Men. A jewel, my Âmethus, a fair youth; A youth whom, if I were but superstitious, I should repute an excellence more high Than mere creations are: to add delight, I'll tell you how I found him.
Men. Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales Which poets of an elder time have feign'd To glorify their Tempe, bred in me
Desire of visiting that paradise.
To Thessaly I came and living private,
Without acquaintance of more sweet companions, Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts, I day by day frequented silent groves, And solitary walks. One morning early This accident encounter'd me: I heard The sweetest and most ravishing contention That art and nature ever were at strife in. Amet. I cannot yet conceive what you infer By art and nature.
Men. I shall soon resolve you.
A sound of music touch'd mine ears, or rather Indeed, entranced my soul: As I stole nearer, Invited by the melody, I saw
This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute, With strains of strange variety and harmony, Proclaiming as it seem'd, so bold a challenge To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds, That, as they flock'd about him, all stood silent, Wondering at what they heard. I wonder'd too.
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