mind.

(Would every maid were half so kind!)
With song's endearment sooth'd my
She open'd, with her golden key,
The casket where my memory lays
Those little gems of poesy,

Which time has sav'd from ancient days!
Take one of these, to LAIS sung,

I wrote it, while my hammock swung,
As one might write a dissertation
Upon "suspended animation!"

SWEETLY you kiss, my LAIS dear!
But, while you kiss, I feel a tear

This epigram is by Paulus Silentiarius, and may be found in the Analecta of Brunck, Vol. 3. p. 72. But as the reading there is somewhat different from what I have followed in this translation, I shall give it as I had it in my memory at the time, and as it is in Heinsius, who, I believe, first produced the epigram. See his Poemata.

Bitter, as those when lovers part,

In mystery from your eye-lid start!

lean your

Sadly you
your head to mine,
And round my neck in silence twine,
Your hair along my bosom spread,
All humid with the tears you shed!
Oh! I have kiss'd those lids of snow,
Yet still, my love, like founts they flow,
Bathing our cheeks, whene'er they meet—
Why is it thus? do, tell me, sweet!
Ah, LAIS! are my bodings right?

Am I to lose you? is to-night

Our last

go, false to heaven and me!

Your very tears are treachery.

SUCH, while in air I floating hung,

Such was the strain," Morgante mio!"

The muse and I together sung,

With Boreas to make out the trio.

But, bless the little fairy isle!

How sweetly after all our ills, We saw the dewy morning smile Serenely o'er its fragrant hills!

And felt the pure, elastic flow
Of airs, that round this Eden blow,
With honey freshness, caught by stealth
Warm from the very lips of health!

Oh! could you view the scenery dear,
That now beneath my window lies,
You'd think, that nature lavish'd here
Her purest wave, her softest skies,
To make a heaven for love to sigh in,
For bards to live and saints to die in!
Close to my wooded bank below,

In glassy calm the waters sleep,
And to the sun-beam proudly show

The coral rocks they love to steep 5!
The fainting breeze of morning fails,
The drowsy boat moves slowly past,
And I can almost touch its sails

That languish idly round the mast.

5 The water is so beautifully clear around the island, that the rocks are seen beneath to a very great depth, and as we entered the harbour, they appeared to us so near the surface, that it seemed impossible we should not strike on them. There is no necessity, of course, for heaving the lead, and the negro pilot, looking down at the rocks from the bow of the ship, takes her through

The sun has now profusely given
The flashes of a noontide heaven,
And, as the wave reflects his beams,
Another heaven its surface seems!
Blue light and clouds of silvery tears
So pictur'd o'er the waters lie,
That every languid bark appears
To float along a burning sky!

Oh! for the boat the angel gave
To him, who in his heaven-ward flight,
Sail'd, o'er the sun's ætherial wave,
To planet-isles of odorous light!
Sweet Venus, what a clime he found

Within thy orb's ambrosial round!

this difficult navigation, with a skill and confidence which seem to astonish some of the oldest sailors.

"In Kircher's" Extatic Journey to Heaven," Cosmiel, the genius of the world, gives Theodidactus a boat of asbestos, with which he embarks into the regions of the sun. "Vides (says Cosmiel) hanc asbestinam naviculam commoditati tuæ præparatam." Itinerar. 1. Dial. 1. Cap. 5. There are some very strange fancies in this work of Kircher.

7 When the Genius of the world and his fellow-traveller arrive at the planet Venus, they find an island of loveliness, full of odours and intelligences, where angels preside, who shed the cosmetic influence of this planet over the earth;

There spring the breezes, rich and warm,
That pant around thy twilight car;
There angels dwell, so pure of form,
That each appears a living star!

These are the sprites, oh radiant queen!
Thou send'st so often to the bed
Of her I love, with spell unseen,

Thy planet's brightning balm to shed;
To make the eye's enchantment clearer,
To give the cheek one rose-bud more,
And bid that flushing lip be dearer,

Which had been, oh! too dear before!

But, whither means the muse to roam?
'Tis time to call the wanderer home.
Who could have ever thought to search her
Up in the clouds with Father Kircher?

such being, according to astrologers, the "vis influxiva" of Venus. When they are in this part of the heavens, a casuistical question occurs to Theodidactus, and he asks "Whether baptism may be performed with the water of Venus?”— “An aquis globi Veneris baptismus institui possit?" to which the Genius answers, Certainly."

66

This idea is Father Kircher's. "Tot animatos soles dixisses." Itinerar. 1. Dial. 1. Cap. 5.