And to repay the other! Why rejoices

Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good? Why cowl thy face beneath the Mourner's hood, Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, Image of Image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf,

That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold? Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold These costless shadows of thy shadowy self?

Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun! Thou hast no reason why! Thou can'st have none Thy being's being is contradiction.

THE VISIT OF THE GODS.

IMITATED FROM SCHILLER.

NEVER, believe me,

Appear the Immortals,

Never alone :

Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler,
Iacchus! but in came Boy Cupid the Smiler;
Lo! Phoebus the Glorious descends from his Throne!
They advance, they float in, the Olympians all!
With Divinities fills my

Terrestrial Hall!

How shall I yield you

Due entertainment

Celestial Quire?

Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoy

ance

Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance,
That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre!
Hah! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my

Soul!

O give me the Nectar!

O fill me the Bowl!

Give him the Nectar!

Pour out for the Poet!

Hebe! pour free?

Quicken his eyes with celestial dew,

That Styx the detested no more he may view,
And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be!
Thanks, Hebe! I quaff it! Io Pæan, I cry!
The Wine of the Immortals

Forbids me to die!

VOL. I.

ELEGY,

IMITATED FROM ONE OF AKENSIDE'S BLANK

VERSE INSCRIPTIONS.

NEAR the lone pile with ivy overspread,
Fast by the rivulet's sleep-persuading sound,
Where" sleeps the moonlight" on yon verdant bed-
O humbly press that consecrated ground!

For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain!
And there his spirit most delights to rove :
Young Edmund! famed for each harmonious strain,
And the sore wounds of ill-requited love.

Like some tall tree that spreads its branches wide, And loads the west-wind with its soft perfume, His manhood blossomed; till the faithless pride Of fair Matilda sank him to the tomb.

But soon did righteous Heaven her guilt pursue! Where'er with wildered step she wandered pale, Still Edmund's image rose to blast her view,

Still Edmund's voice accused her in each gale.

With keen regret, and conscious guilt's alarms,
Amid the pomp of affluence she pined;
Nor all that lured her faith from Edmund's arms
Could lull the wakeful horror of her mind.

Go, Traveller! tell the tale with sorrow fraught: Some tearful maid perchance, or blooming youth, May hold it in remembrance; and be taught

That Riches cannot pay for Love or Truth.