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And, if the power

Of thrilling numbers to thy soul be dear,
Go, bring the bright shell to my bower,
And I will fold thee in such downy dreams,
As lap the spirit of the seventh sphere,

When Luna's distant tone falls faintly on his ear!2
And thou shalt own,

That, through the circle of creation's zone,
Where matter darkles or where spirit beams;

From the pellucid tides, 3 that whirl
The planets through their maze of song,
To the small rill, that weeps along

Murmuring o'er beds of pearl;

In the « Histoire naturelle des Antilles, there is an account of some curious shells, found at Curaçoa, on the back of which were lines, filled with musical characters so distinct and perfect, that the writer assures us a very charming trio was sung from one of them. On le nomme musical, parce qu'il porte sur le dos de lignes noirâtres pleines de notes, qui ont une espèce de clé pour les mettre en chant, de sorte que l'on dirait qu'il ne manque que la lettre à cette tablature naturelle. Ce curieux gentilhomme (M. du Montel) rapporte qu'il en a vu qui avaient cinq lignes, une clé, et des notes, qui formaient un accord parfait. Quelqu'un y avait ajouté la lettre, que la nature avait oubliée, et la faisait chanter en forme de trio, dont l'air était fort agréable. Chap. 19, art. 11, The author adds, a poet might imagine that these shells were used by the Syrens at their concerts.

According to CICERO, and his commentator, MACROBIUS, the lunar tone is the gravest and faintest on the planetary heptachord. Quam ob causam summus ille coli stellifer cursus, cujus conversio est concitation, acuto et excitato movetur sono; gravissimo autem hic lunaris atque infimus. Somn Scip. Because, says MACROBIES, spiritu ut in extremitate languescente jam volvitur, et propter angustias quibus penultimus orbis arctatur impetu leniore convertitur.. In Soma. Scip. lib. 2, cap. 4. It is not very easy to understand the ancients in their musical arrangement of the heavenly bodies. See PTOLEM. lib. 3.

LEONE HEBREO, pursuing the idea of ARISTOTLE, that the heavens are animal, attributes their harmony to perfect and reciprocal love. « Non pero manca fra loro il perfetto e reciproco amore : la causa principale, che ne mostra il loro amore, è la lor amicizia armoniaca e la concordanza, che perpetuamente si trova in loro. Dialog. 2. di Amore, p. 58. This reciproco amore of Leoxx is the pilotns of the ancient EMPEDOCLES, who seems, in his Love and Hate of the Elements, to have given a glimpse of the principles of attraction and repulsion. See the fragment to which I allude in Laerties, Άλλοτε μεν φιλότητι, συνερχομεν. κ. τ. λ. Lib. 8, cap. 2,

D. 12.

3 LEUCIPPES, the atomist, imagined a kind of vortices in the hea

vens, which he borrowed from ΑΝΑΣΑGORAS, and possibly suggested

to DESCARTES.

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Welcome, welcome, mystic shell!

Many a star has ceased to burn, 3

Many a tear has Saturn's urn

O'er the cold bosom of the ocean wept,
Since thy aerial spell

Hath in the waters slept!
I fly,

4

With the bright treasure to my choral sky,
Where she, who waked its early swell,
The syren, with a foot of fire,

Walks o'er the great string of my Orphic Lyre, 5
Or guides around the burning pole

The winged chariot of some blissful soul!6
While thou!

Oh, son of earth! what dream shall rise for thee;
Beneath Hispania's sun,

Thou 'lt see a streamlet run,

Which I have warm'd with dews of melody; 7
Listen!-when the night wind dies
Down the still current, like a harp it sighs!
A liquid chord is every wave that flows,
An airy plectrum every breeze that blows!8
There, by that wondrous stream,
Go, lay thy languid brow,

HERACLIDES, upon the allegories of HOMER, conjectures that the in representing the solar beams as arrows, supposes them to emit a idea of the harmony of the spheres originated with this poet, who, peculiar sound in the air.

In the account of Africa which D'ABLANCOURT has translated there is mention of a tree in that country, whose branches when shaken by the hand produce very sweet sounds. Le méme auteur (ABENZEGAR) dit, qu'il y a un certain arbre, qui produit des gaules comme d'o ier, et qu'en les prenant à la main et les branlant, elles font une espèce d'harmonie fort agréable, etc. etc.-L Afrique de MARMOL.

Alluding to the extinction, or at least the disappearance, of some of those fixed stars, which we are taught to consider as suns, attended each by its sys em. DESCARTES thought that our earth might formerly have been a sun, which became obscured by a thick inc astation over its surface. This probably suggested the idea of a central tire.

4 PORPHYRY says, that PYTHAGORAS held the sea to be a tear.Tyy alattav μev exxhet ecvat danpoov. De Vit. And some one else. if I mistake not, has added the Planet Saturn as the source of it. EMPEDOCLES, with similar affectation, called the sea the sweat of the earth: toputa Tn5775. See RITTERSHUSIUS upon PORPHYRY, Num. 4..

The system of the harmonised orbs was styled by the ancients the Great Lyre of Orpheus, for which Lucian accounts, ʼn de Aupn ἑπταμιτος εουσα την των κινουμένων ας των αρμονιαν ouve6xλsto. x. T. λ. in Astrolog.

6 Διειλε ψυχας ισάριθμους τους αςροις, ένειμε τ' εκάςην προς έκασον, και εμβίβασας ΩΣ ΕΙΣ ΟΧΗΜΑ.

PLATON. Timerus.

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1

And I will send thee such a god-like dream,
Such-mortal! mortal! hast thou heard of him, '
Who, many a night, with his primordial lyre,
Sate on the chill Pangæan mount,
And, looking to the orient dim,
Watch'd the first flowing of that sacred fount,

3

From which his soul had drunk its fire!
Oh! think what visions, in that lonely hour,
Stole o'er his musing breast!
What pious ecstasy 4

Wafted his prayer to that eternal Power,
Whose seal upon this world imprest 5
The various forms of bright divinity!

Or, dost thou know what dreams I wove,
'Mid the deep horror of that silent bower, 6
Where the rapt Samian slept his holy slumber?
When, free

From every earthly chain,

From wreaths of pleasure and from bonds of pain,
His spirit flew through fields above,

Drank at the source of Nature's fontal number. 7
And saw, in mystic choir, around him move
The stars of song, Heaven's burning minstrelsy!
Such dreams, so heavenly bright,

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EPISTLE IV.

TO GEORGE MORGAN, ESQ.

OF NORFOLK, VIRGINIA.1 FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY, 1804.

Κείνη δ' ηνεμόεσσα και άτροπος, δια ν' αλιπληξ, αι θυίης και μάλλον επιδρομος πεπερ ίπποις, ποντω ενεςηρίκται.

CALLIMACH. Hymn. in Del. v. II.

On what a tempest whirl'd us hither! 3
Winds, whose savage breath could wither
All the light and languid flowers
That bloom in Epicurus' bowers!
Yet think not, George, that Fancy's charm
Forsook me in this rude alarm.
When close they reef'd the timid sail,
When, every plank complaining loud,
We labour'd in the midnight gale,

And even our haughty main-mast bow'd!
The muse, in that unlovely hour,
Benignly brought her soothing power,
And, 'midst the war of waves and wind,
In songs elysian lapp'd my mind!
She open'd, with her golden key,
The casket where my memory lays
Those little gems of poesy,

Which time has saved from ancient days! Take one of these, to LAIS sung,

I wrote it while hammock swung,

my

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SWEETLY 3 you kiss, my LAIs dear!

But, while you kiss, I feel a tear,

3 ERATOSTHENES, telling the extreme veneration of Orpheus for Apollo, says that he was accustomed to go to the Pangean mountain at day-break, and there wait the rising of the sun, that he might be the first to bail its beams. Enerpoμevos te TYS VUXTOS, κατά την έωθινην επί το όρος το καλούμε τον Παγ γαιον, προσέμενε τας ανατολας, ίνα ίδη τον Ήλιον dispositions of the family with whom he resides, and the cordial πρώτον. Καταφέρισμ. 24.

4 There are some verses of ORPHEUS preserved to us, which contain sublime ideas of the unity and magnificence of the Deity. As those which JUSTIN MARTYR has produced:

Ούτος μεν χαλκείον ες ουρανον εστήρικται Xpusei Eve Spovos, x. v. λ. Ad Græc. cohortat. It is thought by some, that these are to be reckoned amongst the fabrications which were frequent in the early times of Christianity. Still it appears doubtful to whom we should impute them; they are too pious for the Pagans, and too poetical for the Fathers.

In one of the Hymns of Ogrants, be attributes a figured seal to Apollo, with which he imagines that deity to have stamped a variety of forms upon the universe.

Alluding to the cave near Samos, where Pythagoras devoted the greater part of his days and nights to meditation and the mysteries of his philosophy. Jamblich. de Vit. This, as HOLSTENIUS remarks, was in imitation of the Magi.

The tetractys, or sacred number of the Pythagoreans, on which they solemnly swore, and which they called у EVKOU puses, the fountain of perennial nature. LeCIAN has ridicaled this religious arithmetic very finely in his Sale of Philosophers. * This diadem is intended to represent the analogy between the notes of music and th prismatic colours. We find in Plutarch a vague intimation of this kindred harmony in colours and sounds. Ofts Te naι avov, peta pavys te nai patos typ apportar De Musica. επιφαίνουσι.

CASSIODORUS, whose idea I may be supposed to have borrowed, says, in a letter upon music to Boetius, Ut diadema oculis, varia luce gemmarum, sic cythara diversitate soni, blanditur auditui. This is indeed the only tolerable thought in the letter. Lib. 2, Variar.

This gentleman is attached to the British consulate at Norfolk. His talents are worthy of a much higher sphere, but the excellent

repose he enjoys amongst some of the kindest hearts in the world, should be almost enough to atone to him for the worst caprices of fortune. The consul himself, Colonel Hamilton, is one among the very few instances of a man, ardently loyal to his king, and yet beloved by the Americans. His house is the very temple of hospitality, and I sincerely pity the heart of that stranger who, warm from the welcome of such a board, and with the taste of such Madeira still upon his lips, col dolce in bocca, could sit down to write a libel on his host, in the trae spirit of a modern philosophist. See the Travels of the Duke de LA ROCHEFOUCAULT LIANCOURT, vol. 2.

We were seven days on our passage from Norfolk to Bermuda, during three of which we were forced to lay-to in a gale of wind. The Driver sloop of war, in which I went, was built at Bermuda of cedar, and is accounted an excellent sea-boat. She was then commanded by my very regretted friend Captain Compton, who in July last was killed aboard the Lilly, in an action with a French privateer. Poor Compton! he fell a victim to the strange impolicy of allowing such a miserable thing as the Lilly to remain in the service; so small, crank, and unmanageable, that a well-manned merchantman was at any time a match for her.

This epigram is by PACLES SILENTIARIUS, and may be found in the Analects of BRUNCK, vol. 3, p. 73. But as the reading there is somewhat different from what I have followed in this translation, I shall give it as I had it in my memory at the time, and as it is in HEINSICS, who, I believe, first produced the epigram. See his Poemata.

που μεν εστι φιλημα το Λαίδος ήδν δε αυτών

Η πιοδίνητων δακρυ χεείς βλεφάρων, και πολύ κιχλίζουσα σοβεις ευβοστρυχον αιγλην Ήμετερα κεφαλην δηρον ερεισαμένη.

Bitter as those when lovers part,
In mystery from your eye-lid start!
Sadly you lean your head to mine,
And round my neck in silence twine,
Your hair along my bosom spread,
All humid with the tears you shed!
Have I not kiss'd those lids of snow?
Yet still, my love, like founts they flow,
Bathing our cheeks, whene'er they meet-
Why is it thus? do tell me, sweet!
Ah, LAIS! are my bodings right?
Am I to lose you' is to-night

Our last-go, false to Heaven and me!
Your very tears are treachery.

SUCH, while in air I floating hung,

Such was the strain, Morgante mio! The Muse and I together sung,

With Boreas to make out the trio.

But, bless the little fairy isle!

How sweetly, after all our ills,
We saw the dewy morning smile

Serenely o'er its fragrant hills!
And felt the pure elastic flow
Of airs, that round this Eden blow
With honey freshness, caught by stealth
Warm from the very lips of health!

Oh! could you view the scenery dear,

That now beneath my window lies,
You'd think that Nature lavish'd here
Her purest wave, her softest skies,
To make a heaven for Love to sigh in,
For bards to live and saints to die in!
Close to my wooded bank below,

In glassy calm the waters sleep,
And to the sun-beam proudly show

The coral rocks they love to steep!'
The fainting breeze of morning fails,
The drowsy boat moves slowly past,
And I can almost touch its sails

That languish idly round the mast.
The sun has now profusely given
The flashes of a noontide heaven,
And, as the wave reflects his beams,
Another heaven its surface seems!
Blue light and clouds of silvery tears
So pictured o'er the waters lie,
That every languid bark appears
To float along a burning sky!

Oh! for the boat the angel gave1

To him, who in his heaven-ward flight,

Sail'd, o'er the Sun's ethereal wave,

To planet-isles of odorous light!
Sweet Venus, what a clime he found
Within thy orb's ambrosial round!!
There spring the breezes, rich and warm,
That pant around thy twilight car;
There angels dwell, so pure of form,
That each appears a living star!a
These are the sprites, oh radiant queen!
Thou send'st so often to the bed
Of her I love, with spell unseen,

Thy planet's brightning balm to shed;
To make the eye's enchantment clearer,
To give the cheek one rose-bud more,
And bid that flushing lip be dearer,

Which had been, oh! too dear before!

But, whither means the Muse to roam?
'T is time to call the wanderer home.
Who could have ever thought to search her
Up in the clouds with Father Kircher?
So, health and love to all your mansion!

Long may the bowl that pleasures bloom in,
The flow of heart, the soul's expansion,
Mirth, and song, your board illumine!
Fare you well-remember too,

When cups are flowing to the brim,
That here is one who drinks to you,
And, oh!-as warmly drink to him.

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Μυρομενην δ' εφίλησαν τα δ' ὡς δροσερης απο πηγής, he embarks into the regions of the sun.

Δάκρυα μιγνυμένων πιπτε κατα στομάτων
Είπε δ' ανειρομένῳ, τινος ούνεκα δακρυα λείβεις ;
Δείδια μη με λιπης εστε γαρ ορκαπαται.

The water is so clear around the island, that the rocks are seen beneath to a very great depth, and, as we entered the harbour, they appeared to us so near the surface, that it seemed impossible we should not strike on them. There is no necessity, of course, for heaving the lead, and the negro pilot, looking down at the rocks from the bows of the ship, takes her through this difficult novigation, with a skill and confidence which seem to astonish some of the oldest sailors.

2 In KIRCHER's Ecstatic Journey to Heaven. Cosmiel, the ge nius of the world, gives Theodidactus a boat of asbestos, with which

Vides (says Cosmiel) hanc asbestinam naviculam commoditati tuæ præparatam. Itinerar. 1, dial. 1, cap. 5. There are some very strange fancies in this work of Kircher.

When the genius of the world and his fellow-traveller arrive at the planet Venus, they find an island of loveliness, full of odours and intelligences, where an, els preside, who shed the cosmetic influence of this planet over the earth; such being, according to astrologers, the « vis influxivas of Venus. When they are in this part of the heavens, a casuistical question occurs to Theodidactus, and he asks Whether baptism may be performed with the waters of Venus? An aquis globi Veneris baptisms institui possit? to which the genius answers, Certainly.

This idea is FATHER KIRCHER'S.
Itinerar. 1, dial. 1, cap. 5.

Tot animatos soles dixisses.»

I cannot warn thee! every touch,

That brings my pulses close to thine, Tells me I want thy aid as much,

Oh! quite as much, as thou dost mine!

Yet stay, dear love-one effort yet-
A moment turn those eyes away,
And let me, if I can, forget

The light that leads my soul astray!

Thou say'st that we were born to meet,

That our hearts bear one common seal,

Oh, lady! think, how man's deceit

Can seem to sigh and feign to feel!

When o'er thy face some gleam of thought, Like day-beams through the morning air, Hath gradual stole, and I have caught

The feeling ere it kindled there :

The sympathy I then betray'd,

Perhaps was but the child of art;
The guile of one who long hath play'd
With all these wily nets of heart.
Oh! thou hast not my virgin vow!
Though few the years I yet have told,
Canst thou believe I lived till now

With loveless heart or senses cold?

No-many a throb of bliss and pain,
For many a maid, my soul hath proved;
With some I wanton'd wild and vain,
While some I truly, dearly loved!
The cheek to thine I fondly lay,

To theirs hath been as fondly laid;
The words to thee I warmly say,

To them have been as warmly said.
Then scorn at once a languid heart,

Which long hath lost its early spring;
Think of the pure bright soul thou art,
And-keep the ring, oh! keep the ring.
Enough-now, turn thine eyes again;
What, still that look and still that sigh!
Dost thou not feel my counsel then?
Oh no, beloved!-nor do I.

While thus to mine thy bosom lies,
While thus our breaths commingling glow,
'T were more than woman to be wise,
'T were more than man to wish thee so!

Did we not love so true, so dear,

This lapse could never be forgiven; But hearts so fond and lips so near

Give me the ring, and now-Oh heaven!

ΤΟ

ON SEEING HER WITH A WHITE VEIL AND A RICH GIRDLE.

Μαργαρίται δηλουσι δακρύων ρόον.
Ap. Nicephor. in Oneirocritico.

Put off the vestal veil, nor, oh!
Let weeping angels view it;
Your cheeks belie its virgin snow,
And blush repenting through it.

Put off the fatal zone you wear;

The lucid pearls around it

Are tears that fell from Virtue there The hour that Love unbound it.

THE RESEMBLANCE.

vo cercand' io

Donna, quant'è possibile, in altrui La desiata vostra forma vera,

YES, if 't were any common love

That led my pliant heart astray,

83

PETRARC. Sonett. 13.

I grant, there's not a power above
Could wipe the faithless crime away!

But, 't was my doom to err with one
every look so like to thee,
That, oh! beneath the blessed sun,

In

So fair there are but thou and she!

Whate'er may be her angel birth,

She was thy lovely perfect twin, And wore the only shape on earth

That could have charm'd my soul to sin!

Your eyes!-the eyes of languid doves
Were never half so like each other!
The glances of the baby loves

Resemble less their warm-eyed mother!

Her lip!-oh, call me not false-hearted,
When such a lip I fondly press'd;
'T was Love some melting cherry parted,
Gave thee one half and her the rest!

And when, with all thy murmuring tone,
They sued, half open, to be kiss'd,

I could as soon resist thine own-
And them, Heaven knows! I ne'er resist.

Then, scorn me not, though false I be,

'Twas love that waked the dear excess; My heart had been more true to thee, Had mine eye prized thy beauty less!

ΤΟ

WHEN I loved you, I can't but allow I had many an exquisite minute; But the scorn that I feel for you now Hath even more luxury in it!

Thus, whether we 're on or we're off, Some witchery seems to await you;

To love you is pleasant enough,

And, oh! 't is delicious to hate you!

FROM THE GREEK OF MELEAGER.'

FILL high the cup with liquid flame,

And speak my Heliodora's name!

Εγχει, και παλιν είπε, παλιν, παλιν, Ηλιόδωρος Είπε, συν ακρητῳ το γλυκυ μισγ' όνομα.

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ODES TO NEA;

WRITTEN AT BERMUDA.

Nex TupaVVEL.

EURIPID. Medea, v. 967.

NAY, tempt me not to love again :
There was a time when love was sweet;
Dear Nea! had I known thee then,
Our souls had not been slow to meet!
But, oh ! this weary heart hath run,

So many a time the rounds of pain,
Not even for thee, thou lovely one!

Would I endure such pangs again.

If there be climes where never yet
The print of Beauty's foot was set,
Where man may pass his loveless nights
Unfever'd by her false delights-
Thither my wounded soul would fly,
Where rosy cheek or radiant eye

Should bring no more their bliss, their pain,
Or fetter me to earth again!

Dear absent girl ! whose eyes of light,

Though little prized when all my own,
Now float before me, soft and bright

As when they first enamouring shone!
How many hours of idle waste,
Within those witching arms embraced,
Unmindful of the fleeting day,
Have I dissolved life's dream away!
O bloom of time profusely shed!

O moments! simply, vainly fled,
Yet sweetly too- for love perfumed
The flame which thus my life consumed;
And brilliant was the chain of flowers
In which he led my victim hours!

Sav, Nea dear! couldst thou, like her,
When warm to feel and quick to err,
Of loving fond, of roving fonder,
My thoughtless soul might wish to wander-
Couldst thou, like her, the wish reclaim,
Endearing still, reproaching never,
Till all my heart should burn with shame,
And be thy own more fix'd than ever?
No, no-on earth there's only one
Could bind such faithless folly fast:
And sure on earth 't is I alone

Could make such virtue false at last!

Nea! the heart which she forsook,

For thee were but a worthless shrineGo, lovely girl, that angel look

Must thrill a soul more pure than mine. Oh! thou shalt be all else to me,

That heart can feel or tongue can feign; I'll praise, admire, and worship thee, But must not, dare not, love again.

Tale iter omne cave.
PROPERT. lib. iv, eleg, 8.

I PRAY you, let us roam no more Along that wild and lonely shore,

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