Their blessed moments,-every sun Saw us, my love, more closely one.

But, Cara, when the dawn was nigh Which came a new year's light to shed, That smile we caught from eye to eye Told us, those moments were not fled: Oh, no, we felt, some future sun

Should see us still more closely one.

Thus may we ever, side by side,
From happy years to happier glide;
And still thus may the passing sigh

We give to hours, that vanish o'er us,
Be follow'd by the smiling eye,

That Hope shall shed on scenes before us!

The business of my life shall be,
For ever to remember thee.
And though that heart be dead to mine,
Since Love is life and wakes not thine,

I'll take thy image, as the form

Of one whom Love had fail'd to warm,
Which, though it yield no.answering thrill,
Is not less dear, is worshipp'd still-
I'll take it, wheresoe'er I stray,
The bright, cold burden of my way.
To keep this semblance fresh in bloom,
My heart shall be its lasting tomb,
And Memory, with embalming care,
Shall keep it fresh and fadeless there.

TO

1801.

To be the theme of every hour
The heart devotes to Fancy's power,
When her prompt magic fills the mind
With friends and joys we've left behind,
And joys return and friends are near,
And all are welcom'd with a tear :-
In the mind's purest seat to dwell,
To be remember'd oft and well

By one whose heart, though vain and wild,
By passion led, by youth beguil'd,
Can proudly still aspire to be

All that may yet win smiles from thee :

If thus to live in every part

Of a lone, weary wanderer's heart;

If thus to be its sole employ

Can give thee one faint gleam of joy,
Believe it, Mary,-oh! believe

A tongue that never can deceive,
Though, erring, it too oft betray

Ev'n more than Love should dare to say,-
In Pleasure's dream or Sorrow's hour,
In crowded hall or lonely bower,

1 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, parcequ'il porte sur le dos des lignes noirâtres pleines de notes, qui ont une espèce de clé pour les mettre en chant, de sorte que l'on diroit qu'il ne manque que la lettre à cette tablature naturelle. Ce curieux gentilhomme (M. du Montel) rapporte qu'il en a vû qui avoient cinq lignes, une clé, et des notes, qui fermoient un accord parfait. Quelqu'un y avoit ajouté la lettre, que la nature avoit oubliée, et la faisoit chanter en forme de trio, dont l'air étoit fort agréable."-- Chap. xix. art. 11. The author adds, a poet might imagine that these shells were used by the syrens at their concerts.

2 According to Cicero, and his commentator, Macrobius, the lunar tone is the gravest and faintest on the planetary heptachord. Quam ob causam summus ille cœli stellifer cursus, cujus con

THE

GENIUS OF HARMONY.

AN IRREGULAR ODE.

Ad harmoniam canere mundum.
CICERO de Nat. Deor. lib. iii.

THERE lies a shell beneath the waves,
In many a hollow winding wreath'd,
Such as of old

Echoed the breath that warbling sea-maids breath'd,
This magic shell,

From the white bosom of a syren fell,

As once she wander'd by the tide that laves Sicilia's sands of gold.

It bears

Upon its shining side the mystic notes

Of those entrancing airs'

The genii of the deep were wont to swell, When heaven's eternal orbs their midnight music

roll'd!

Oh! seek it, wheresoe'er it floats;
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!

versio est concitatior, acuto et excitato movetur sono: gravissim autem hie lunaris atque infimus."-Somn. Scip. Because, sut Macrobius, "spiritu ut in extremitate langueseente jam volvitur, et propter angustias quibus penultimus orbis arctatur impetu lens convertitur."-In Somn. Scip. lib. ii. cap. 4. In their mansal arrangement of the heavenly bodies, the ancient writers are a very intelligible.- See Ptolem. lib. iii.

Leone Hebreo, in pursuing the idea of Aristotle, that the heavens are animal, attributes their harmony to perfect and recis rocal love "Non pero manca fra loro il perfetto et reciproco amore: la es principale, che ne mostra il loro amore, è la lor amicitia arm et la concordanza, che perpetuamente si trova in loro."- Dialo di Amore, p. 58. This" reciproco amore" of Leone is the d the ancient Empedocles, who seems, in his Love and Hate of t Elements, to have given a glimpse of the principles of attract and repulsion. See the fragment to which I allude in Laert as Αλλοτε μεν φιλότητα, συνερχόμεν' κ. τ. λ. lib. viii. cap. 2. π. 19.

Of the sun's arrow through an evening sky.?
To the faint breath the tuneful osier yields
On Afric's burning fields;3

Thou'lt wondering own this universe divine
Is mine!

That I respire in all and all in me,

One mighty mingled soul of boundless harmony.

Welcome, welcome, mystic shell!
Many a star has ceas'd to burn,
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.

Now blest I'll fly

With the bright treasure to my choral sky,
Where she, who wak'd its early swell,
The Syren of the heavenly choir,
Walks o'er the great string of my Orphic Lyre;
Or guides around the burning pole

The winged chariot of some blissful soul :"
While thou-

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

Thou'lt see a streamlet run, Which I've imbued with breathing melody;"

Leucippus, the atomist, imagined a kind of vortices in the heavens, which he borrowed from Anaxagoras, and possibly suggested to Descartes.

Heraclides, upon the allegories of Homer, conjectures that the idea of the harmony of the spheres originated with this poet, who, representing the solar beams as arrows, supposes them to emit a peliar 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 même auteur "Abenz gari dit, qu'il y a un certain arbre, qui produit des gaules

e d'orier, et qu'en les prenant à la main et les branlant, elles : une espèce d'harmonie fort agréable," &c. &c. - L'Afrique de Norwel

*Alluding to the extinction, or at least the disappearance, of some of those fixed stars, which we are taught to consider as suns, tended each by its system. Descartes thought that our earth nicht formerly have been a sun, which became obscured by a thick crustation over its surface. This probably suggested the idea of a central fire.

Porphyry says, that Pythagoras held the sea to be a tear, Tyy Farettes per catei erai dasprov (De Vita); and some one else, if I take not, has added the planet Saturn as the source of it. Emcies, with similar affectation, called the sea "the sweat of the tarih :" Moura me yn See Rittershusius upon Porphyry. Num. 41. The system of the harmonized orbs was styled by the ancients the Great Lyre of Orpheus, for which Lucian thus accounts: -t de Δάση έπτώματος πουτα την των κινουμένων αστρων ἁρμονίαν συνεβάλλετο, es in Astrolog.

Η άνελα ψυχας ισάριθμους τους αστρούς, ενειμε θ' έκαστην προς έκαστον, και or '02 EI OXHMA" Distributing the souls severally among the cars, and mounting each soul upon a star as on its chariot.". Pas Times.

This musical river is mentioned in the romance of Achilles Τάλλας. Επει ποταμού . . την δε ακούσαι θέλης του ύδατος λαλούντος. The

From 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. 16 And saw, in mystic choir, around him move The stars of song, Heaven's burning minstrelsy! Such dreams, so heavenly bright,

Latin version, in supplying the hiatus which is in the original, has placed the river in Hispania. "In Hispania quoque fluvius est, quem primo aspectu," &c. &c.

9 These two lines are translated from the words of Achilles Tatius. Εαν γαρ ολιγος ανεμος εις τας δίνας έμπεση, το μεν ύδωρ ὡς χορδη κρύνεται, το δε πνεύμα του ύδατος πλήκτρων γίνεται, το ρεύμα δε ὡς κιθαρα λαλει.-Lib. ii.

10 Orpheus.

11 They called his lyre αρχαιότροπον επτάχορδου Ορφέως. See a curious work by a professor of Greek at Venice, entitled "Hebdomades, sive septem de septenario libri."--Lib. iv. cap. 3. p. 177.

12 Eratosthenes, in mentioning the extreme veneration of Orpheus for Apollo, says that he was accustomed to go to the Pangæan mountain at day-break, and there wait the rising of the sun, that he might be the first to hail its beams. Επεγειρόμενος τα της νυκτος, κατά την έωθινην επί το όρος το καλουμένου Παγγαίου, προσέμενε τας ανα τολας, ίνα ίδη τον Ήλιον πρωτον. - Καταστερισμό. 24.

18 There are some verses of Orpheus preserved to us, which contain sublime ideas of the unity and magnificence of the Deity. For instance, those which Justin Martyr has produced :

Ούτος μεν χαλκείον ες ουρανόν εστήρικται
Χρυσείω και θρόνω, κ. τ. 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 they are to be attributed, being too pious for the Pagans, and too poetical for the Fathers.

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

15 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. Iamblich. de Vit. This, as Holstenius remarks, was in imitation of the Magi.

16 The tetractys, or sacred number of the Pythagoreans, on which

I swear

By the great diadem that twines my hair,
And by the seven gems that sparkle there,'
Mingling their beams

In a soft iris of harmonious light,

Oh, mortal! such shall be thy radiant dreams.

I FOUND her not - the chamber seem'd Like some divinely haunted place, Where fairy forms had lately beam'd, And left behind their odorous trace!

It felt, as if her lips had shed
A sigh around her, ere she fled,
Which hung, as on a melting lute,
When all the silver chords are mute,
There lingers still a trembling breath
After the note's luxurious death,
A shade of song, a spirit air

Of melodies which had been there.

I saw the veil, which, all the day,

Had floated o'er her cheek of rose;
I saw the couch, where late she lay
In languor of divine repose;
And I could trace the hallow'd print

Her limbs had left, as pure and warm
As if 'twere done in rapture's mint,
And Love himself had stamp'd the form.

Oh my sweet mistress, where wert thou?
In pity fly not thus from me;
Thou art my life, my essence now,

And my soul dies of wanting thee.

they solemnly swore, and which they called wayar acvaov Dvoces, "the fountain of perennial nature." Lucian has ridiculed this religious arithmetic very cleverly in his Sale of Philosophers.

This diadem is intended to represent the analogy between the notes of music and the prismatic colours. We find in Plutarch a vague intimation of this kindred harmony in colours and sounds. - ύψος το και ακοή, μετά φωνης τε και φωτος την αρμονιαν επιφαίνουσι De Musica.

Cassiodorns, 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. ii. Variar.

2 See the Story in Apuleius. With respect to this beautiful allegory of Love and Psyche, there is an ingenious idea suggested by the senator Buonarotti, in his "Osservazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi antichi." He thinks the fable is taken from some very occult mysteries, which had long been celebrated in honour of

ΤΟ

MRS. HENRY TIGHE

ON READING HER "PSYCHE."

TELL me the witching tale again, For never has my heart or ear Hung on so sweet, so pure a strain, So pure to feel, so sweet to hear.

Say, Love, in all thy prime of fame,
When the high heaven itself was thine;
When piety confess'd the flame,
And even thy errors were divine;

Did ever Muse's hand, so fair,

A glory round thy temples spread? Did ever lip's ambrosial air

Such fragrance o'er thy altars shed?

One maid there was, who round her lyre
The mystic myrtle wildly wreath'd;
But all her sighs were sighs of fire,
The myrtle wither'd as she breath'd.

Oh! you, that love's celestial dream,
In all its purity, would know,
Let not the senses' ardent beam

Too strongly through the vision glow.

Love safest lies, conceal'd in night,
The night where heaven has bid him lie;
Oh! shed not there unhallow'd light,
Or, Psyche knows, the boy will fly.2

Sweet Psyche, many a charmed hour, Through many a wild and magic waste, To the fair fount and blissful bower3

Have I, in dreams, thy light foot trac'd!

Love; and accounts, upon this supposition, for the silence of the more ancient authors upon the subject, as it was not till towards the decline of pagan superstition, that writers could venture to revisi or discuss such ceremonies. Accordingly, observes this author, w find Lucian and Plutarch treating, without reserve, of the Des Syria, as well as of Isis and Osiris; and Apuleius, to whom we sim indebted for the beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche, has alwa detailed some of the mysteries of Isis. See the Giornale di Litteri d'Italia, tom. xxvii, articol. 1. See also the observations upon the ancient gems in the Museum Florentinum, vol. i. p. 136.

I cannot avoid remarking here an error into which the French Encyclopédistes have been led by M. Spon, in their article Psyche They say "Pétrone fait un récit de la pompe nuptiale de ces drax amans (Amour et Psyche). Déjà, dit-il," &c. &c. The Psyche of Petronius, however, is a servant-maid, and the marriage which he describes is that of the young Pannychis. See Spon's Recherches curieuses, &c. Dissertat, 5.

3 Allusions to Mrs. Tighe's Poem.

1 Constancy.

By this image the Platonists expressed the middle state of the wad between sensible and intellectual existence.

This poem, as well as a few others that occur afterwards, formed part of a work which I had early projected, and even anced to the public, but which, luckily perhaps for myself, had Lee interrupted by my visit to America in the year 1803. Among those impostures in which the priests of the pagan temples are known to have indulged, one of the most favourite was that of ancing to some fair votary of the shrine, that the God himself had become enamoured of her beauty, and would descend in all glory, to pay her a visit within the recesses of the fane. An restore of this description formed an episode in the classic romance which I had sketched out; and the short fragment, given love, belongs to an epistle by which the story was to have been introduei

In the 9th Pythic of Pindar, where Apollo, in the same manner,

For foot so light has never trod
The laurel'd caverns of the god,
Nor harp so soft has ever given
A sigh to earth or hymn to heaven.

66

"Then tell the virgin to unfold, "In looser pomp, her locks of gold, "And bid those eyes more fondly shine "To welcome down a Spouse Divine; "Since He, who lights the path of years Even from the fount of morning's tears To where his setting splendours burn Upon the western sea-maids urn — "Doth not, in all his course, behold "Such eyes of fire, such hair of gold. "Tell her, he comes, in blissful pride, "His lip yet sparkling with the tide "That mantles in Olympian bowls, The nectar of eternal souls!

66

Oh, he would quit his star-thron'd height, "And leave the world to pine for light,

There is a cave beneath the steep," Where living rills of crystal weep O'er herbage of the loveliest hue That ever spring begemm'd with dew: There oft the greensward's glossy tint Is brighten'd by the recent print Of many a faun and naiad's feet, Scarce touching earth, their steps so fleet, That there, by moonlight's ray, had trod, In light dance, o'er the verdant sod. "There, there," the god, impassion'd, said, "Soon as the twilight tinge is filed,

"And the dim orb of lunar souls"

6 The Corycian Cave, which Pausanias mentions. The inhabitants of Parnassus held it sacred to the Corycian nymphs, who were children of the river Plistus.

7 See note 4, p. 297. It should seem that lunar spirits were of a purer order than spirits in general, as Pythagoras was said by his followers to have descended from the regions of the moon. The heresiarch Manes, in the same manner, imagined that the sun and moon are the residence of Christ, and that the ascension was nothing more than his flight to those orbs.

PITY me, love! I'll pity thee,
If thou indeed hast felt like me.
All, all my bosom's peace is o'er!
At night, which was my hour of calm,
When, from the page of classic lore,
From the pure fount of ancient lay
My soul has drawn the placid balm,
Which charm'd its every grief away,
Ah! there I find that balm no more.
Those spells, which make us oft forget
The fleeting troubles of the day,
In deeper sorrows only whet
The stings they cannot tear away.
When to my pillow rack'd I fly,
With wearied sense and wakeful eye:
While my brain maddens, where, oh, where
Is that serene consoling pray'r,
Which once has harbinger'd my rest,
When the still soothing voice of Heaven

Hath seem'd to whisper in my breast,

66

'Sleep on, thy errors are forgiven!

No, though I still in semblance pray, My thoughts are wand'ring far away And ev'n the name of Deity

Is murmur'd out in sighs for thee.

Which seems so modestly to steal
Along the waste of night!

'Tis thus the world's obtrusive wrongs
Obscure with malice keen
Some timid heart, which only longs
To live and die unseen.

THE KISS.

GROW to my lip, thou sacred kiss,
On which my soul's beloved swore
That there should come a time of bliss,
When she would mock my hopes no more.
And fancy shall thy glow renew,
In sighs at morn, and dreams at night,
And none shall steal thy holy dew
Till thou'rt absolv'd by rapture's rite.
Sweet hours that are to make me blest,
Fly, swift as breezes, to the goal,
And let my love, my more than soul,
Come blushing to this ardent breast.
Then, while in every glance I drink
The rich o'erflowings of her mind,
Oh! let her all enamour'd sink
In sweet abandonment resign'd,
Blushing for all our struggles past,
And murmuring, "I am thine at last!"

SONG.

THINK on that look whose melting ray For one sweet moment mix'd with mine, And for that moment seem'd to say,

"I dare not, or I would be thine!"

Think on thy ev'ry smile and glance,

On all thou hast to charm and move; And then forgive my bosoin's trance, Nor tell me it is sin to love.

Oh, not to love thee were the sin;
For sure, if Fate's decrees be done,
Thou, thou art destin'd still to win,
As I am destin'd to be won!

A NIGHT. THOUGHT.

How oft a cloud, with envious veil,
Obscures yon bashful light,

The temple of Jupiter Belus, at Babylon; in one of whose towers there was a large chapel set apart for these celestial assignations. "No man is allowed to sleep here," says Herodotus; "but the apartment is appropriated to a female, whom, if we believe the Chaldean priests, the deity selects from the women of the country, as his favourite." Lib. i. cap. 181.

2 Fontenelle, in his playful rifacimento of the learned materials

of Van-Dale, has related in his own inimitable manner an adventure of this kind which was detected and exposed at Alexandria. See L'Histoire des Oracles, dissert. 2. chap. vii. Crebillon, too, in one of his most amusing little stories, has made the Génie Man Taupes, of the Isle Jonquille, assert this privilege of spintal beings in a manner rather formidable to the husbands of the island.