WHY DOES SHE SO LONG DELAY?

WHY does she so long delay?

Night is waning fast away;

Thrice have I my lamp renew'd,

Watching here in solitude.

Where can she so long delay?

Where so long delay?

Vainly now have two lamps shone;
See the third is nearly gone :
Oh, that love would, like the ray
Of that weary lamp, decay!
But no, alas! it burns still on,
Still, still, burns on.

Gods, how oft the traitress dear
Swore by Venus, she'd be here!
But to one so false as she,
What is man or deity?
Neither doth this proud one fear,
No, neither doth she fear.

TO WEAVE A GARLAND FOR THE ROSE. To weave a garland for the Rose,

And think, thus crown'd 'twould lovelier be, Were far less vain than to suppose,

That silks and gems add grace to thee.

Where is the pearl, whose orient lustre
Would not, beside thee, look less bright?
What gold could match the glossy cluster
Of those young ringlets full of light?
Bring from the land, where fresh it gleams,
The bright blue gem of India's mine,
And see how soon, though bright it beams,
"Twill pale before one glance of thine;
Those lips, too, when their sounds have blest us,
With some divine, mellifluous air,

Who would not say that beauty's cestus
Had let loose all its witcheries there?
Here, to this conquering host of charms
I now give up my spell-bound heart,
Nor blush to yield e'en reason's arms

When thou her bright-eyed conqueror art.
Thus to the wind all fears are given;

Henceforth those eyes alone I see, Where Hope, as in her own blue heaven, Sits beck'ning us to bliss and thee.

Happy the art that could dispose
Whate'er in sea or garden grows,
And summon'd to the enchanted land
The Naïad's and the Nereïd's band.

On the Same.

HERE strive for empire, o'er the happy scene, The Nymphs of fountain, sea, and woodland green;

The power of grace and beauty holds the prize Suspended, even to her votaries;

And finds amazed, where'er she casts her eye, Their contest forms the matchless harmony.

TWIN'ST THOU WITH LOFTY WREATH THY BROW?

TWIN'ST thou with lofty wreath thy brow?
Such glory then thy beauty sheds,

I almost think, whil'st aw'd I bow,
'Tis Rhea's self before me treads.
Be what thou wilt,-this heart
Adores whate'er thou art!

Dost thou thy loosen'd ringlets leave,

Like sunny waves, to wander free? Then such a chain of charms they weave, As draws mine inmost soul from me. Do what thou wilt,-I must

Be charmed by all thou dost!

E'en when enwrapt in silvery veils,
Those sunny locks elude the sight,-
Oh, not e'en then their glory fails

To haunt me with its unseen light.
Change as thy beauty may,
It charms in every way!
For thee the graces still attend,

Presiding o'er each new attire,
And lending every dart they send
Some new, peculiar touch of fire.
Be what thou wilt,-this heart
Adores whate'er thou art!

WHEN THE SAD WORD. WHEN the sad word " Adieu," from my lip is nigh falling,

And, with it, hope passes away,

Ere the tongue has half breathed it, my fond heart recalling

That fated farewell, bids me stay.
For oh! 'tis a penance so weary,

One hour from thy presence to be,
That death to this soul were less dreary,
Less dark, than long absence from thee.

Thy beauty, like day, on the dull world breaking,
Brings life to the heart it shines o'er,

And, in mine, a new feeling of happiness waking,
Made light what was darkness before.
But mute is the day's sunny glory,

While thine has a voice, on whose breath,
More sweet than the syren's sweet story,

My hopes hang through life and through death!

AN EPITAPH. OH! many a tear, from hearts by anguish torn, Around thy tomb our streaming eyelids pour'd; A common son, a common friend, we mourn, In thee too much belov'd, so much deplor❜d. Harsh, heartless fate, nor pity had, nor ruthAlas! alas-nor spared thy tender youth.

THE OFFERING OF A DESERTED LOVER.
To thee the relics of a thousand flowers,
Torn from the chaplet twined in gayer hours;
To thee the goblet carved with skill divine,
Erewhile that foam'd with soul-subduing wine;
The locks, now scatter'd on the dusty ground,
Once dropping odours, and with garlands crown'd,
Outcast of pleasure, and of hope bereft,
Lais! to thee, thy Corydon has left.

Oft on thy threshold stretch'd, at close of day,
He wept and sigh'd the cheerless night away,
Nor dared invoke thy name, nor dared aspire
To melt thy bosom with his amorous fire,
Or plead a gracious respite to his pain,
Or speak the language of a happier swain.-
Alas! alas! "now cold and senseless grown,"
These last sad offerings make his sorrows known,
And dare upbraid those scornful charms that gave
His youth unpitied to the cheerless grave.

LOVE NOT EXTINGUISHED BY AGE,
FOR me thy wrinkles have more charms,
Dear Lydia, than a smoother face!
I'd rather fold thee in my arms,
Than younger, fairer nymphs embrace.
To me thy autumn is more sweet,

More precious, than their vernal rose;
Their summer warms not with a heat
So potent, as thy winter glows.

THE CHAIN OF LOVE.

IN wanton sport, my Doris from her fair
And glossy tresses, tore a straggling hair,
And bound my hands, as if of conquest vain,
And I some royal captive in her chain.
At first I laugh'd-"This fetter, lovely maid,
Is lightly worn, and soon dissolved," I said.
I said but ah, I had not learned to prove
How strong the fetters that are forged by Love.
That little thread of gold I strove to sever,
Was bound, like steel, about my heart for ever,
And, from that luckless hour, my tyrant fair
Has led, and turn'd me by a single hair.

THE PICTURE.

Оn how unequal is the painter's art,
To reach the glowing picture of the heart,
To catch the roseate graces of my fair,
"Her eyes' blue languish, and her golden hair!"
First paint the gorgeous day-star's beam divine,
Then may your imaged Lydia equal mine.

dame,

THE HYMN OF ARION. HAIL, Neptune, greatest of the gods! Thou ruler of the salt-sea floods; Thou with the deep and dark-green hair, That dost the golden trident bear: Thou that, with either arm outspread, Embosomest the earth we tread: Thine are the beasts with fins and scales, That, round thy chariot, as it sails, Plunging and tumbling, fast and free, All reckless, follow o'er the sea. Thine are the gentle dolphin throng, That love and listen to the song; With whom the sister Nereids stray, And in their crystal caverns play. They bore me well to Pelops' isle, And Lacedæmon's rocky pile; And through the deep Sicilian sea The briny champaign ploughed for me; When wicked men had cast me o'er Our vessel's side, into the roar Of clashing waters, and a grave Yawned for me in the purple wave.

EPITAPH.

THOU art not dead, my Prote, though no more
A sojourner on earth's tempestuous shore;
Fled to the peaceful islands of the blest,
Where youth and love, for ever beaming, rest;
Or joyful wandering o'er Elysian ground,
Among sweet flowers, where not a thorn is found.
No Winter freezes there, no Summer fires,
No sickness weakens, and no labour tires;
No hunger, poverty, or wants oppress,
Nor envy of man's boasted happiness;
But Spring for ever glows, serenely bright,
And bliss immortal hails the heavenly light.

ON A CORPSE WASHED ASHORE. NOT rugged Trachis hides these whitening bones, Nor that black isle whose name its colour

shows,

But the wild beach, o'er which, with ceaseless

moans,

The vexed Icarian wave, eternal, flows, Of Drepanus-ill-famèd promontory—

And there, instead of hospitable rites, The long grass sweeping tells his fate's sad

story

To rude tribes gathered from the neighbouring heights.

ULYSSES ON HIS RETURN.

HAIL Ithaca, my loved paternal soil!
How, after years of travel, war, and toil,
How, after countless perils of the sea,
My heart, returning, fondly clings to thee!
Where I shall once more bless my father's age,
And smooth the last steps of his pilgrimage;
Again embrace my wife, again enjoy
The sweet endearments of mine only boy.
Now, from my soul, I feel how strong the chain
That binds the passions to our native plain.

ON A STATUE OF NIOBE.

THIS female (so the poets sing)
Was changed to stone by Dian's curse.
The sculptor did a better thing-
He did exactly the reverse.

On the Same.

RELENTING Heaven had given the mourner rest,
And hushed in stone the terrors of her breast;
What cruel hand renews the sense of pain,
And bids the marble live to weep again?

ON A SHIPWRECKED PERSON.

PERISH the hour-that dark and starless hourPerish the roaring main's tempestuous power,That whelm'd the ship, where loved Abdera's

son

Prayed to unheeding heaven, and was undone. Yes-all were wrecked; and, by the stormy wave To rough Seriphos borne, he found a grave,— Found, from kind stranger hands, funereal fires, Yet reached, inurned, the country of his sires.

ON ERINNA, THE POETESS. SCARCE nineteen summer suns had shed Youth's roses o'er the virgin's head, While by a guardian mother's side, Her customary tasks she plied, Bade the rich silks her loom prepare, Or plied the distaff's humbler care;Her modest worth the Muses knew, Brought her bright genius forth to view, And-ah, too soon!-from mortal eyesBore her, their handmaid, to the skies.

BIS DAT, QUI CITO DAT.

SWIFT favours charm, but when too long they stay,

They lose the name of kindness by delay.

FUNERAL HONOURS.

SEEK not to glad these senseless stones

With fragrant ointments, rosy wreaths; No warmth can reach our mouldering bones From lustral fire, that vainly breathes. Now let me revel whilst I may :

The wine, that o'er my grave is shed, Mixes with earth, and turns to clayNo honours can delight the dead.

On the Same.

OH, think not that with garlands crown'd, Inhuman near thy grave we tread;

Or blushing roses scatter round,

To mock the paleness of the dead!

What though we drain the fragrant bowl,
In flowers adorn'd, and silken vest,
Oh, think not, brave departed soul,
We revel to disturb thy rest.
Feign'd is the pleasure that appears,

And false the triumph of our eyes; Each draught of joy is dash'd with tears, And all our songs but echo sighs.

ON A POOR MAN
BECOMING RICH IN HIS OLD AGE.

Poon and destitute at twenty-
Now at three-score-I have plenty.
What a miserable lot!

Now, that I have hoarded treasure,
I no more can taste of pleasure:
When I could, I had it not.

ON DEATH.

THE bath, obsequious beauty's smile,
Wine, fragrance, music's heavenly breath,
Can but our hastening hours beguile,
And slope the path that leads to Death.

ON A MURDERED CORPSE. THOUGH here thou'st laid my corpse, when none were nigh;

One saw thee, murderer!-One all-seeing Eye.

ON THE NINE LYRIC POETS. O SACRED Voice of the Pierian choir, Immortal Pindar! O enchanting air Of sweet Bacchylides! O rapturous lyre, Majestic graces, of the Lesbian fair. Muse of Anacreon, the gay, the young, Stesichorus, thy full Homeric stream! Soft elegies by Cea's poet sung!

Persuasive Ibycus, thy glowing theme! Sword of Alcæus, that, with tyrant's gore Gloriously painted, lift'st thy point so high! Ye tuneful nightingales, that still deplore

Your Aleman, prince of amorous poesy! Oh yet impart some breath of heav'nly fire To him who venerates the Grecian lyre!

ON ONE WHO SLEW HIS MOTHER. O BURY not the dead, but let him lie A prey for dogs beneath th' unpitying sky! Our common mother, Earth, would grieve to

hide

The hateful body of the Matricide.

ON A HAPPY OLD MAN. TAKE old Amyntor to thy breast, dear Soil, In kind remembrance of his former toil, Who first enrich'd and ornamented thee With many a lovely shrub and branching tree, And lured the stream to fall in artful showers Upon thy thirsting herbs and fainting flowers. First in the spring he knew the rose to rear, First in the autumn cull the ripen'd pear; His vines were envied all the village round, And favouring heaven showered plenty on his ground,

Therefore, O Earth, lie lightly on his head, And with thy choicest spring-flowers deck his bed.

ON A MISERABLE OLD MAN. Br years and misery worn, no hand to save With some poor pittance from a desperate grave; With the small strength my wretched age sup

plied,

I crawled beneath this lonely pile and died. Screened from the scoff of pride and grandeur's

frown,

In this sad spot I laid my sufferings down,
Reversed the doom of nature, and instead
Of "dead and buried," buried was and dead.