Haste swiftly hence, while thou hast pow'er to fly.
The sea with ships will soon be cover'd o'er,
And blazing firebrands kindle all the shore.
Prevent her rage, while night obscures the skies;
And sail before the purple morn arise.
Who knows what hazards thy delay may bring?
Woman's a various and changeful thing."
Thus Hermes in the dream: then took his flight,
Aloft in air unseen, and mix'd in night.

Twice warn'd by the celestial messenger,
The pious prince arose with hasty fear;
Then rous'd his drowsy train without delay:
"Haste to your banks, your crooked anchors weigh,
And spread your flying sails, and stand to sea!
A god commands: he stood before my sight,
And urg'd us once again to speedy flight.
O sacred pow'r! what pow'r soe'er thou art,
To thy blest orders I resign my heart.
Lead thou the way; protect thy Trojan bands;
And prosper the design thy will commands."
He said; and, drawing forth his flaming sword,
His thund'ring arm divides the many-twisted cord.
And emulating zeal inspires his train:
They run; they snatch; they rush into the main.
With headlong haste they leave the desert shores,
And brush the liquid seas with lab'ring oars.
Aurora now had left her saffron bed,
And beams of early light, the heav'ns o'erspread,
When from a tow'er, the queen, with wakeful eyes,
Saw day point upward from the rosy skies.
She look'd to seaward: but the sea was void,
And scarce in ken the sailing ships descried.
Stung with despite, and furious with despair,
She struck her trembling breast, and tore her hair;
"And shall th' ungrateful traitor go (she said),
My land forsaken, and my love betray'd?
Shall we not arm? not rush from ev'ry street?
To follow, sink, and burn, his perjur'd fleet?
Haste! haul my galleys out! pursue the foe!
Bring flaming brands! set sail, and swiftly row!
What have I said? where am I? Fury turns
My brain; and my distemper'd bosom burns;
Then, when I gave my person and my throne,
This hate, this rage, had been more timely shown.
See now the promis'd faith, the vaunted name,
The pious man, who, rushing through the flame,
Preserv'd his gods, and to the Phyrgian shore
The burden of his feeble father bore!

I should have torn him piecemeal-strew'd in floods
His scatter'd limbs, or left expos'd in woods-
Destroy'd his friends and son-and from the fire
Have set the reeking boy before the sire.
Events are doubtful which on battle wait!
Yet where's the doubt, to souls secure of fate
My Tyrians, at their injur'd queen's commana,
Had toss'd their fires amid the Trojan band:
At once extinguished all the faithless name;
And I myself, in vengeance of my shame,
Had fall'n upon the pile, to mend the fun'ral flame.
Thou sun, who view'st at once the world below!

Thou Juno, guardian of the nuptial vow!
Thou Hecat, hearken from thy dark abodes!
Ye Furies, fiends, and violated gods!
All pow'rs invok'd with Dido's dying breath,
Attend her curses and avenge her death!
If so the Fates ordain, and Jove commands,
Th' ungrateful wretch should find the Latian lands,
Yet let a race untam'd, and haughty foes,
His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose:
Oppress'd with numbers in th' unequal field,
His men discourag'd, and himself expell'd,
Let him for succor sue from place to place,
Torn from his subjects, and his son's embrace
First let him see his friends in battle slain,
And their untimely fate lament in vain:
And when at length ths cruel war shall cease,
On hard conditions may he buy his peace:
Nor let him then enjoy supreme command;
But fall, untimely, by some hostile hand,
And lie unburied on the barren sand!
These are my pray'rs, and this my dying will:
And you, my Tyrians, ev'ry curse fulfil.
Perpetual hate and mortal wars proclaim
Against the prince, the people, and the name.
These grateful off'rings on my grave bestow;
Nor league, nor love, the hostile nations know!
Now, and from hence, in ev'ry future age,
When rage excites your arms, and strength supplies
the rage,

Rise some avenger of our Libyan blood,
With fire and sword pursue the perjur'd brood-
Our arms, our seas, our shores, oppos'd to theirs-
And the same hate descend on all our heirs!"

This said, within her anxious mind she weighs
The means of cutting short her odious days.
Then to Sichæus' nurse she briefly said

(For, when she left her country, hers was dead)
'Go, Barce, call my sister. Let her care
The solemn rites of sacrifice prepare;
The sheep, and all th' atoning off'rings, bring;
Sprinkling her body from the crystal spring
With living drops; then let her come; and tho
With sacred fillets bind thy hoary brow.
Thus will I pay my vows to Stygian Jove,
And ends the cares of my disastrous love;
Then cast the Trojan image on the fire;
And, as that burns, my passion shall expire."

The nurse moves onward with officious care,
And all the speed her aged limbs can bear.
But furious Dido, with dark thoughts involv'd,
Shook at the mighty mischief she resolv'd.
With livid spots distinguish'd was her face;
Red were her rolling eyes, and discompos'd her pace,
Ghastly she gaz'd; with pain she drew her breath;
And nature shiver'd at approaching death.

Then swiftly to the fatal place she pass'd,
And mounts the fun'ral pile with furious haste;
Unsheaths the sword the Trojan left behind
(Not for so dire an enterprise design'd).

But when she view'd the garments loosely spread.

Which once he wore, and saw the conscious bed,
She paus'd, and with a sigh the robes embrac'd,
Then on the couch her trembling body cast,
Repress'd the ready tears, and spoke her last:

Dear pledges of my love, while heav'n so pleas'd,
Receive a soul, of mortal anguish eas'd.
My fatal course is finish'd; and I go,
A glorious name, among the ghosts below.
A lofty city by my hands is rais'd;

Pygmalion punish'd, and my lord appeas'd.
What could my fortune have afforded more,
Had the false Trojan never touch'd my shore?"
Then kiss'd the couch; and "Must I die," she said.
"And unreveng'd? 'tis doubly to be dead!
Yet e'en this death with pleasure I receive:
On any terms, 'tis better than to live.

These flames from far may the false Trojan view;
These boding omens his base flight pursue!"
She said, and struck: deep enter'd in her side
The piercing steel, with reeking purple dy'd:
Clogg'd in the wound the cruel weapon stands;
The spouting blood came streaming on her hands.
Her sad attendants saw the deadly stroke,
And with loud cries the sounding palace shook.
Distracted from the fatal sight they fled,
And through the town the dismal rumor spread.
First from the frighted court the yell began;
Redoubled, thence from house to house it ran:
The groans of men, with shrieks, laments, and cries
Of mixing women, mount the vaulted skies.
Not less the clamor, than if ancient Tyre,
Or the new Carthage, set by foes on fire-
The rolling ruin, with their lov'd abodes,
Involv'd the blazing temples of their gods.
Her sister hears, and, furious with despair,
She beats her breast, and rends her yellow hair,
And, calling on Eliza's name aloud,

Runs breathless to the place, and breaks the crowd.
"Was all that pomp of woe for this prepar'd,
These fires, this fun'ral pile, these altars rear'd?
Was all this train of plots contriv'd (said she),
All only to deceive unhappy me?

Which is the worst? Didst thou in death pretend
To scorn thy sister, or delude thy friend?
Thy summon'd sister and thy friend had come:
One sword had serv'd us both, one common tomb:
Was I to raise the pile, the pow'rs invoke,
Not to be present at the fatal stroke?

At once thou hast destroy'd thyself and me,

Thy town, thy senate, and thy colony!

Bring water! bathe the wound; while I in death. Lay close my lips to hers, and catch the flying

breath."

This said, she mounts the pile with eager haste,
And in her arms the gasping queen embrac'd.
Her temples chaf'd; and her own garments tore.
To stanch the streaming blood, and cleanse the gore.
Thrice Dido tried to raise her drooping head,
And, fainting, thrice fell grov'ling on the bed;
Thrice op'd her heavy eyes, and saw the light,

But, having found it, sicken'd at the sight,
And clos'd her lids at last in endless night.
Then Juno, grieving that she should sustain
A death so ling'ring, and so full of pain,
Sent Iris down, to free her from the strife
Of lab'ring nature, and dissolve her life.

For, since she died, not doom'd by heav'n's decree,
Or her own crime, but human casualty,
And rage of love, that plung'd her in despair,
The sisters had not cut the topmost hair,
Which Prosperine and they can only know;
Nor made her sacred to the shades below.
Downward the various goddess took her flight,
And drew a thousand colors from the light;
Then stood above the dying lover's head,
And said, "I thus devote thee to the dead.
This off'ring to the infernal gods I bear."
Thus while she spoke, she cut the fatal hair:
The struggling soul was loos'd and life dissolv'd in
air.

But I wish'd it had been God's will that I, too, then could have died:

I began to be tired a little, and fain had slept at his side.

And that was ten years back, or more, if I don't Iorget;

But as to the children, Annie, they're all about me yet.

Pattering over the boards, my Annie who left me at two,

Patter she goes, my own little Annie, an Annie like you:

Pattering over the boards, she comes and goes at her will,

While Harry is in the five-acre and Charlie ploughing the hill.

And Harry and Charlie, I hear them too-they sing to their team:

Often they come to the door in a pleasant kind of a dream.

They come and sit by my chair, they hover about my bed

I am not always certain if they be alive or dead.

And yet I know for a truth, there's none of them left alive;

For Harry went at sixty, your father at sixty-five: And Willy, my eldest born, at nigh threescore and ten;

I knew them all as babies, and now they're elderly

mer..

For mine is a time of peace, it is not often I grieve; I am oftener sitting at home in my father's farm at

eve:

And the neighbors come and laugh and gossip, and so do I;

I find myself often laughing at things that have long gone by.

To be sure the preacher says, our sins should make us sad:

But mine is a time of peace, and there is grace to be had;

And God, not man, is the Judge of us all when life shall cease;

And in this Book, little Annie, the message is one of Peace.

And age is a time of peace, so it be free from pain, And happy has been my life; but I would not live it again.

I seem to be tired a little, that's all, and long for rest; Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best.

So Willy has gone, my beauty, my eldest-born, my flower;

But how can I weep for Willy, he has but gone for an hour,-

Gone for a minute, my son, from this room into the next;

I, too, shall go in a minute. What time have I to be vext?

And Willy's wife has written, she never was over. wise.

Get me my glasses, Annie: thank God that I keep my eyes.

There is but a trifle left you, when I shall have passed away.

But stay with the old woman now: you cannot have long to stay.

YOUTH AND AGE.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a beeBoth were mine! Life went a-maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,

When I was young!

When I was young? Ah, woful when!
Ah, for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house, not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands,
How lightly then it flashed along:
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!
Nought cared this body for wind or weather,
When Youth and I lived in't together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like,
Friendship is a sheltering-tree;

O the joys that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old!

Ere I was old? Ah, woful Ere,

Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet,
'Tis known that thou and I were one.
I'll think it but a fond conceit-
It cannot be that thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled!
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make-believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size;
But springtide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are housemates still.

Dewdrops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,
When we are old:

That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking leave;
Like some poor nigh-related guest,
That may not rudely be dismissed,

Yet hath outstayed his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.

ODE TO MY SON, AGED THREE YEARS.

THOMAS HOOD.

Thou happy, happy elf!

(But stop-first let me kiss away that tear) Thou tiny image of myself!

(My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite!

With spirits feather-light,

Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin, (Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin!)

Thou little tricksy Puck!

With antic toys so funnily bestuck,

Light as the singing bird that wings the air, (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire!

(Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire!)

Thou imp of mirth and joy!

In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents (Drat the boy! There goes my ink!)

Thou cherub-but of earth;

Fit playfellow for fays by moonlight pale,
In harmless sport and mirth,

(That dog will bite him if he pulls its tail!)
Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey
From every blossom in the world that blows,
Singing in youth's Elysium ever sunny,
(Another tumble-that's his precious nose!)
Thy father's pride and hope!

He'll break the mirror with that skipping rope!) With pure heart newly stamped from Nature's mint, (Where did he learn that squint?)

Thou young domestic dove!

(He'll have that jug off with another shove!) Dear nursling of the hymeneal nest! (Are those torn clothes his best?) Little epitome of man!

(He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan!) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life, (He's got a knife!)

Thou enviable being!

No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky forseeing,

Play on, play on, My elfin John!

Toss the light ball-bestride the stick,

(I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) With fancies buoyant as the thistle-down, Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk With many a lamb-like frisk,

(He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown') Thou pretty opening rose!

(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!) Balmy, and breathing music like the south, (He really brings my heart into my mouth!) Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star, (I wish that window had an iron bar!) Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove, (I'll tell you what, my love,

I cannot write, unless he's sent above!)

LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE.

JORGE MANRIQUE.

O! let the soul its slumber break, Arouse its senses and awake,

To see how soon

Life with its glories glides away, And the stern footstep of decay Comes stealing on.

How pleasure, like the passing wind,
Blows by, and leaves us nought behind
But grief at last;

How still our present happiness
Seems, to the way ward fancy, less
Than what is past.

And while we eye the rolling tide, Down which our flying minutes glide Away so fast;

Let us the present hour employ, And deem each future dream of joy Already past.

Let no vain hope deceive the mindNo happier let us hope to find

To-morrow than to-day. Our golden dreams of yore were bright, Like them the present shall delight,— Like them decay.

Our lives like hasting streams must be, That into one engulfing sea

Are doomed to fall:

The Sea of Death, whose waves roll on, O'er king and kingdom, crown and throne, And swallow all.

Alike the river's lordly tide,
Alike the humble riv'lets glide
To that sad wave;

Death levels poverty and pride,
And rich and poor sleep side by side
Within the grave.