MUSEUS.

MUSEUS is the name of an ancient Greek poet and priest of Ceres. He is said to have been the pupil of Orpheus, and to have flourished about 1180 B. C. Julius Scaliger and others attribute to him the poem of "Hero and Leander," but this idea is not favorably received by scholars generally. That poem, it is claimed, was written by another Greek poet of the same name who is said to have lived about the fifth century. The following is a selection from the poem.

HERO.

FROM THE GREEK OF MUSEUS.

The graceful virgin, of a noble strain,
As priestess ministered in Venus' fane;
From wedlock strange, within a sea-beat

tower,

Far from her parents, in her bashful flower,
She chastely dwelt, herself so lovely seen,
Another Venus and a heavenly queen.
But mixed not with the blithe-assembling
fair,

Nor 'midst the youthful dancers skimmed in air,

She shunned the curious glance of female

eyes,

And women's beauty-kindled jealousies, Still to propitiate Venus fondly strove,

Such Hero's cheek, but on those cheeks of

snow

Were two vermilion circles seen to glow:
The scarlet and the milky rose appeared
As from the velvet sheath their buds they
reared,

And he that looked on Hero's limbs had said
That meads of roses there their colors spread.
Soft blushed her tinted limbs; her ankles
glowed

With roses as the robe's white drapery flowed,
Light-wafted with her step; soft Graces skim
Round all her form and float from every limb;
Three Graces live in legendary lies:
A thousand spring from Hero's laughing eyes.
Duly to her fair Venus' priesthood fell
Whose charms could thus her charming sex

excel;

She wore the priestess' lowly garb in vain Who was herself the Venus of the fane. Each youth of tender soul infected sighed, Nor one but wished to clasp her for his bride ;

As o'er the temple's marble floor she moved, Men's eyes, hearts, souls, with all her motions. roved.

ROMAN SHEPHERD.

HE shepherds of the Abruzzi have long formed a small but very distinct class

of a caste among the people of the Italian

arts,

Yet could not so escape his fiery darts.
Now Hero walked the fane with virgin grace,
A shining beauty lightening from her face.
As white the moon emerges to the view
With her clear visage of transparent hue,

very frequently combined with the vocation of shepherds the less peaceful but more remunerative profession of brigandage, and many a romance has been woven, in fiction and in reality, wherein these bucolic knights of the road have figured.

stead

roof,

And the maple boughs that

When swelling fruit blushed ruddily

To summer's balmy breath,

And the laden boughs drooped heavily To the greensward underneath.

'Twas brightest in a rainy day,

When all the purple west
Was piled with fleecy storm-clouds
That never seemed at rest-
When a cool and lulling melody

Fell from the dripping eaves,
And soft, warm drops came pattering
Upon the restless leaves.

But oh, the scene was glorious

When clouds were lightly riven, And there, above my valley-home, Came out the bow of heaven, And in its fitful brilliancy Hung quivering on high Like a jewelled arch of paradise Reflected through the sky.

I am thinking of the footpath My constant visits made Between the dear old homestead

And that leafy apple shade, Where the flow of distant waters

Came with a tinkling sound, Like the revels of a fairy-band Beneath the fragrant ground.

I haunted it at eventide,
And dreamily would lie
And watch the crimson twilight
Come stealing o'er the sky;
'Twas sweet to see its dying gold
Wake up the dusky leaves,
To hear the swallows twittering
Beneath the distant eaves.

I have listened to the music-
A low, sweet minstrelsy-
Breathed by a lonely night-bird
That haunted that old tree,
Till my heart has swelled with feelings
For which it had no name—

A yearning love of poesy,

A thirsting after fame.

I have gazed up through the foliage
With dim and tearful eyes,
And with a holy reverence

Dwelt on the changing skies,
Till the burning stars were peopled
With forms of spirit-birth,

And I've almost heard their harp-strings
Reverberate on earth.