"Tell her, he comes, in blissful pride,
"His lip yet sparkling with the tide,
“ That mantles in Olympian bowls,
"The nectar of eternal souls!

"For her, for her he quits the skies,
"And to her kiss from nectar flies.
"Oh! he would hide his wreath of rays,
"And leave the world to pine for days,

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Might he but pass the hours of shade,
"Imbosom'd by his Delphic maid,

She, more than earthly woman blest,
He, more than god on woman's breast!"

There is a cave beneath the steep 5,
Where living rills of crystal weep
O'er herbage, of the loveliest hue
That ever spring begem'd with dew,
There oft the green bank's glossy tint
Is brighten'd by the amorous print
Of many a faun and naiad's form,

That still upon the dew is warm,

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

6

When virgins come, at peep of day,
To kiss the sod where lovers lay!

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There, there" the god, impassion'd, said, "Soon as the twilight tinge is fled,

"And the dim orb of lunar souls 6

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Along its shadowy path-way rolls—
There shall we find our bridal bed,

And ne'er did rosy rapture spread,

Not even in Jove's voluptuous bowers, "A bridal bed so blest as ours!

See a preceding note, page 138. 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 too imagined that the sun and moon are the residence of Christ, and that the ascension was nothing more than his flight to those orbs.

7 The temple of Jupiter Belus at Babylon, which consisted of several clapels and towers." In the last tower (says Herodotus) is a large chapel, in which there lies a bed, very splendidly ornamented, and beside it a table of gold; but there is no statue in the place. No man is allowed to sleep here, but the apartment is appropriated to a female, whom, if we believe the Chaldæan

"Tell him, when to his midnight loves
"In mystic majesty he moves,

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Lighted by many an odorous fire,

"And hymn'd by all Chaldæa's choir

priests, the deity selects from the women of the country, as his favourite." Lib. i. Cap. 181.

The poem now before the reader, and a few more in the present collection, are taken from a work, which I rather prematurely announced to the public, and which, perhaps very luckily for myself, was interrupted by my voyage to America. The following fragments from the same work describe the effect of one of these invitations of Apollo upon the mind of a young enthusiastic girl.

* Delphi heard her shrine proclaim,
In oracles, the guilty flame.
Apollo lov'd my youthful charms,
Apollo woo'd me to his arms!-
Sure, sure when man so oft allows
Religion's wreath to blind his brows,
Weak wondering woman must believe,
Where pride and zeal at once deceive,
When flattery takes a holy vest,
Oh! 'tis too much for woman's breast!

How often ere the destin'd time,
Which was to seal my joys sublime,
How often did I trembling run
To meet, at morn, the mounting sun,
And, while his fervid beam he threw
Upon my lip's luxuriant dew,
I thought alas! the simple dream—
There burn'd a kiss in every beam;
With parted lips inhal'd their heat,
And sigh'd "oh god! thy kiss is sweet!"

N N

"Oh! tell the godhead to confess, "The pompous joy delights him less,

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(Even though his mighty arms enfold

“ A priestess on a couch of gold)

Oft too, at day's meridian hour,
When to the naiad's gleamy bower
Our virgins steal, and, blushing, hide
Their beauties in the folding tide,

If, through the grove, whose modest arms
Were spread around my robeless charms,
A wandering sunbeam wanton fell
Where lovers' looks alone should dwell,
Not all a lover's looks of flame
Could kindle such an amorous shame,
It was the sun's admiring glance,

And, as I felt its glow advance

O'er my young beauties, wildly flush'd
I burn'd and panted, thrill'd and blush'd!

*

No deity at midnight came,

The lamps, that witness'd all my shame,
Reveal'd to these bewilder'd eyes

No other shape than earth supplies;
No solar light, no nectar'd air,
All, all, alas! was human there,
Woman's faint conflict, virtue's fall
And passion's victory, human all!
How gently must the guilt of love
Be charm'd away by Powers above,
When men possess such tender skill
In softening crime and sweetening ill!
'Twas but a night, and morning's rays
Saw me, with fond, forgiving gaze,
Hang o'er the quiet slumbering breast
Of him who ruin'd all my rest;
Him, who had taught these eyes to weep
Their first sad tears, and yet could sleep!

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Than, when in love's unholier prank,
By moonlight cave or rustic bank

Upon his neck some wood-nymph lies,

Exhaling from her lip and eyes
“The flame and incense of delight,
"To sanctify a dearer rite,

A mystery, more divinely warm'd
"Than priesthood ever yet perform'd!”

Happy the maid, whom heaven allows
To break for heaven her virgin vows!
Happy the maid!—her robe of shame
Is whiten'd by a heavenly flame,
Whose glory, with a lingering trace,
Shines through and deifies her race!

Oh virgin! what a doom is thine!
To-night, to-night a lip divine3

5 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, seconde dissertat. chap. vii. Crebillon too, in one of his most amusing little stories, has made the Génie Mange-Taupes, of the Isle Jonquille, assert this privilege of