EEP in my soul that tender secret dwells,
Lonely and lost to light for evermore,
Save when to thine my heart responsive

swells,

Then trembles into silence as before.

There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp

Burns the slow flame, eternal, but unseen; Which not the darkness of despair can damp, Though vain its ray as it had never been.

Remember me-Oh! pass not thou my grave Without one thought whose relics there recline:

The only pang my bosom dare not brave
Must be to find forgetfulness in thine.

My fondest, faintest, latest accents hear-
Grief for the dead not virtue can reprove ;
Then give me all I ever ask'd—a tear,

The first-last-sole reward of so much love!

YE CUPIDS, DROOP EACH LITTLE HEAD.

(From Catullus.*)

E Cupids, droop each little head,

Nor let your wings with joy be spread;
My Lesbia's favourite bird is dead,

Whom dearer than her eyes she loved :
For he was gentle, and so true,
Obedient to her call he flew,

No fear, no wild alarm he knew,

But lightly o'er her bosom moved :

And softly fluttering here and there,
He never sought to cleave the air,
But chirrup'd oft, and, free from care,
Tuned to her ear his grateful strain.

* "Lugete, Veneres, Cupidinesque.”

Now having pass'd the gloomy bourne
From whence he never can return,
His death and Lesbia's grief I mourn,
Who sighs, alas! but sighs in vain.

Oh! curst be thou, devouring grave!
Whose jaws eternal victims crave,
From whence no earthly power can save,

For thou hast ta'en the bird away: From thee my Lesbia's eyes o'erflow, Her swollen cheeks with weeping glow Thou art the cause of all her woe, Receptacle of life's decay.

N

(TO INEZ.)

AY, smile not at my sullen brow;
Alas! I cannot smile again :
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou
Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.

And dost thou ask what secret woe

I bear, corroding joy and youth? And wilt thou vainly seek to know

A pang, ev'n thou must fail to soothe?

It is not love, it is not hate,

Nor low Ambition's honours lost,