Not thus Chrysippus, or mild Thales taught;
Not thus the honeyed sage of Athens thought,
Who, when in bonds, received the hemlock'd bowl,
Nor wish'd the accuser part, but drain'd the whole.
'Tis bless'd philosophy, whose voice inspires
The upright tenor of subdued desires :
When error and gross vice the soul infest,
She gently draws, and weeds them from the breast.
Know, where revenge has fixed its firm control,
There lurks a narrow and a feeble soul.
Thus, fitted to the weaker sex, we find
Revenge most pleasing to a woman's mind.
But wherefore dream that safe the wicked speed,
Whose minds, aghast, are conscious of the deed?
The soul in silence shakes the scourge of sin,
And the slow torturer lurks and lives within.
Worse sentence never did Cæditius doom,
Nor Rhadamanthus frame beyond the tomb,
Than thus, by day, by night, to bear along
The mute accusing evidence of wrong.
A Spartan once the Delphic counsel sought,
Ere yet the meditated fraud he wrought,
Withheld a pledge, or took a perjured oath;
But the bare doubt convicted him of both.
'No-not unpunish'd should the suppliant speed,
Who ask'd if Phoebus would approve the deed.'
The priestess said: the man, from terror's sense,
Restored the pledge, his morals the pretence.
But soon he verified the voice divine,
Prophetic utter'd from the secret shrine.
His children and himself were swept away,
And his ancestral house fell headlong to decay.
Such punishments the' unwary wretch oppress,
Who acts, in thought, the will of wickedness:
The man, who frames the silent guilt within,
Incurs the crime of a committed sin.
What if the deed accomplish'd crown the will?
E'en at the social board care haunts him still:
His palate's fever-dried: in goblets crude
Between his teeth the' unmasticated food
Grows with the grinding motion of his jaws,
That ache to chew: the wine his butler draws,
Though from Albania's growth the produce came,
And precious age matures it into fame,
Poor wretch! he spits and sputters from his lips :
Present a mellower vintage, and he sips;
But straight such wrinkles furrow up his face,
Sour vinegar could raise no worse grimace.
If his sore mind at night a respite lend,
Thrown on the couch his limbs at length extend:
He slumbers; is at rest; but soon the fane,
The violated altars rise again:
[still
And thee whom he has wrong'd, whose memory
Bids clammy sweat from his cold brow distil,
Thee, with deep mental horror dreaded most,
He sees thee rising like an angry ghost:
When, larger than the life, thy image seems
To hover o'er him in his troubled dreams :
From his closed lips the' unwilling murmurs wrest,
And drag the dark confession from his breast.
Yes these are they who, pale with terror, glare When thunder rolls and lightnings blaze in air: Who, when the first low-muttering sounds have pass'd,
In listening horror seem to breathe their last.
To them no chance of clouds-no rage of winds-
But angry vengeance flashes on their minds:
Harmless the gleam whirls by; the skies are clear,
Still o'er them hangs the panic weight of fear.
Lest but deferr'd the tempest's brighten'd gloom, And the next storm should sweep them to the tomb.
Then, if their side with shooting anguish ache,
And their strain'd eyes in restless fever wake,
They deem the sickness mission'd from on high,
And these the stones and arrows of the sky.
No bleating lamb they to the chapel vow,
Nor to the household gods devote they now
A crested cock; for can the wicked pray
In hope? are lambs not worthier life than they?
How mutable and various still we find
The shifts and turnings of a villain's mind!
Bold when they sin; and when the sin is done,
Conscience grows wise; the terror is begun.
Yet nature to the censured crime recurs,
Steadfast to ill, and constant, when she errs.
Who by fix'd bounds could e'er his sin restrain ?
When has the harden'd forehead blush'd again?
Or where the man, in this our virtuous time,
Who breathes content with but a single crime?
FROM THE LATIN OF JUVENAL.
MAY gentlest earth our fathers' shades inclose,
Light be their turf, and peaceful their repose!
Forth from their urns the breathing crocus fling
The balmy sweets of an eternal spring!
Who will'd that to the tutor should be show'd
The filial reverence to a parent owed.
FROM THE LATIN OF AUSONIUS.
"TWAS spring; the morn return'd in saffron veil,
And breathed a nipping coolness in the gale.
A keener air had harbinger'd the Dawn,
That drove her coursers o'er the eastern lawn.
The breezy cool allured my feet to stray
And thus anticipate the fervid day.
Through the broad walks I trod the garden bowers,
And roam'd, refresh'd against the noontide hours.
I saw the hoary dew's congealing drops
Bend the tall grass and vegetable tops;
On the broad leaves play'd bright the trembling
And airy waters bow'd the laden stems. [gems,
There Pæstan roses blush'd before my view,
Bedropp'd with early morning's freshening dew;
The sprinkled pearls on every rose bush lay,
Anon to melt before the beams of day.
"Twere doubtful, if the blossoms of the rose
Had robb'd the morning, or the morning those.
In dew, in tint the same, the star and flower;
For both confess the queen of beauty's power.
Perchance their sweets the same: but this more
Exhales its breath; and that embalms the sky:
Of flower and star the goddess is the same,
And both she tinged with hues of roseate flame.
I saw a moment's interval divide
The rose that blossom'd from the rose that died.
This with its cap of tufted moss look'd green,
That, tipp'd with reddening purple,peep'd between:
One rear'd its obelisk with opening swell,
The bud unsheath'd its crimson pinnacle;
Another, gathering every purfled fold,
Its foliage multiplied; its blooms unroll'd;
The teeming chives shot forth; the petals spread;
The bowpot's glory rear'd its smiling head:
While this, that ere the passing moment flew,
Flamed forth one blaze of scarlet on the view;
Now shook from withering stalk the waste per-
Its verdure stripp'd, and pale its faded bloom.
I marvel'd at the spoiling flight of time,
That roses thus grew old in earliest prime.
E'en while I speak, the crimson leaves drop round,
And a red brightness veils the blushing ground,
These forms, these births, these changes bloom,
decay,
Appear, and vanish in the selfsame day. [sighs,
The flowers brief grace, oh Nature! moves my
Thy gifts just shown are ravish'd from our eyes.
One day the rose's age, and while it blows
In dawn of youth, it withers to its close.
The rose the glittering sun beheld, at morn,
Spread to the light its blossoms newly born,
When in his round he looks from evening skies,
Already droops in age, and fades, and dies.
Yet bless'd, that soon to fade, the numerous flower
Succeeds herself, and still prolongs her hour.
Oh virgins! roses cull, while yet ye may;
So bloom your hours, and so shall haste away.
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