Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight
While tears were thy best pastime,-day and night :

And while my youthful peers, before my eyes,
(Each Hero following his peculiar bent)
Prepared themselves for glorious enterprize
By martial sports,-or, seated in the tent,
Chieftains and kings in council were detained;
What time the Fleet at Aulis lay enchained.

The wish'd-for wind was given :-I then revolved
Our future course, upon the silent sea;
And, if no worthier led the way, resolved
That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be
The foremost prow in pressing to the strand,-
Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand.

Yet bitter, oft-times bitter, was the pang
When of thy loss I thought, beloved Wife;
On thee too fondly did my memory hang,
And on the joys we shared in mortal life,-
The paths which we had trod-these fountains-flowers;
My new-planned Cities, and unfinished Towers.

But should suspense permit the Foe to cry,
"Behold they tremble!-haughty their array,
Yet of their number no one dares to die?"-
In soul I swept the indignity away :

Old frailties then recurred :--but lofty thought,
In act embodied, my deliverance wrought.

And thou, though strong in love, art all too weak
In reason, in self-government too slow;

I counsel thee by fortitude to seek

Our blest re-union in the shades below.
The invisible world with thee hath sympathized;
Be thy affections raised and solemnized.

Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend
Towards a higher object:-Love was given,
Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for this end.
For this the passion to excess was driven-
That self might be annulled; her bondage prov
The fetters of a dream, opposed to love."

Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes re-appears!
Round the dear Shade she would have clung-'tis vain :
The hours are past, too brief had they been years;
And him no mortal effort can detain:
Swift tow'rd the realms that know not earthly day,
He through the portal takes his silent way-
And on the palace-floor a lifeless corse she lay

Ah, judge her gently who so deeply loved!
Her, who, in reason's spite, yet without crime,
Was in a trance of passion thus removed;
Delivered from the galling yoke of time
And these frail elements to gather flowers
Of blissful quiet mid unfading bowers.

Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone,
As fondly he believes.-Upon the side
Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained)
A knot of spiry trees for ages grew
From out the tomb of him for whom she died;
And ever, when such stature they had gained
That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,
The trees' tall summits wither'd at the sight;

* A constant interchange of growth and blight!

* For the account of these long-lived trees, see Pliny's Natural History, Lib. 16. Cap. 44.

POEMS

OF THE FANCY.