To catch the thought, by painting's spell,

Howe'er remote, howe'er refin'd,
And o'er the kindling canvass tell
The silent story of the mind;

O'er nature's form to glance the eye,
And fix, by mimic light and shade,
Her morning tinges, ere they fly,

Her evening blushes, ere they fade; —

Yes, these are Painting's proudest powers;
The gift, by which her art divine
Above all others proudly towers, —

And these, oh Prince! are richly thine.

And yet, when Friendship sees thee trace,
In almost living truth exprest,
This bright memorial of a face

On which her eye delights to rest;
While o'er the lovely look serene,

The smile of peace, the bloom of youth, The cheek, that blushes to be seen,

The eye that tells the bosom's truth;

While o'er each line, so brightly true,

Our eyes with ling'ring pleasure rove, Blessing the touch whose various hue

Thus brings to mind the form we love;

1 Though I have styled this poem a Dithyrambic Ode, I cannot presume to say that it possesses, in any degree, the characteristics of that species of poetry. The nature of the ancient Dithyrambic is very imperfectly known. According to M. Burette, a licentious irregularity of metre, an extravagant research of thought and expression, and a rude embarrassed construction, are among its most distinguishing features; and in all these respects, I have but too closely, I fear, followed my models. Burette adds, "Ces caractères des dithyrambes se font sentir à ceux qui lisent attentivement les odes de Pindare." - Mémoires de l'Acad. vol. x. p. 306. The same opinion may be collected from Schmidt's dissertation upon the subject. I think, however, if the Dithyrambics of Pindar were in our possession, we should find that, however wild and fanciful, they were by no means the tasteless jargon they are represented, and that even their irregularity was what Boileau calls "un beau désordre." Chiabrera, who has been styled the Pindar of Italy, and from whom all its poetry upon the Greek model was called Chiabreresco (as Crescimbeni informs us, lib. i. cap. .2.), has given, amongst his Vendemmie, a Dithyrambic, "all' uso de' Greci ;" full of those compound epithets, which, we are told, were a chief characteristic of the style (συνθέτους δε λέξεις εποίουν. — Suid. Διθυραμβοδιδ.); such as

THE FALL OF HEBE.

A DITHYRAMBIC ODE.I

"TWAS on a day

When the immortals at their banquet lay;
The bowl

Sparkled with starry dew,

The weeping of those myriad urns of light,
Within whose orbs, the almighty Power,
At nature's dawning hour,
Stor'd the rich fluid of ethereal soul. 2
Around,

Soft odorous clouds, that upward wing their flight
From eastern isles

(Where they have bath'd them in the orient ray,
And with rich fragrance all their bosoms fill'd),
In circles flew, and, melting as they flew,
A liquid daybreak o'er the board distill'd.

All, all was luxury!

All must be luxury, where Lyæus smiles. His locks divine

Were crown'd

With a bright meteor-braid,

Which, like an ever-springing wreath of vine, Shot into brilliant leafy shapes,

And o'er his brow in lambent tendrils play'd:

Briglindorato Pegaso Nubicalpestator.

But I cannot suppose that Pindar, even amidst all the licence of dithyrambics, would ever have descended to ballad-language like the following:

Bella Filli, e bella Clori,

Non più dar pregio a tue bellezze e taci, Che se Bacco fa vezzi alle mie labbra Fo le fiche a' vostri baci.

esser vorrei Coppier,

E se troppo desiro
Deh fossi io Bottiglier.

Rime del CHIABRERA, part ii. p. 352.

2 This is a Platonic fancy. The philosopher supposes, in his Timæus, that, when the Deity had formed the soul of the world, he proceeded to the composition of other souls, in which process, says Plato, he made use of the same cup, though the ingredients he mingled were not quite so pure as for the former; and having refined the mixture with a little of his own essence, he distributed it among the stars, which served as reservoirs of the fluid. TaUT' UTI Zai tahu iti τον προτερον κρατήρα εν ώ την του παντος ψυχην κεραννυς εμισή,

x. T. λ.

While mid the foliage hung,

Like lucid grapes,

A thousand clustering buds of light, Cull'd from the gardens of the galaxy.

Upon his bosom Cytherea's head

Lay lovely, as when first the Syrens sung
Her beauty's dawn,

And all the curtains of the deep, undrawn,
Reveal'd her sleeping in its azure bed.
The captive deity

Hung lingering on her eyes and lip,
With looks of ecstasy.

Now, on his arm,

In blushes she repos'd,

And, while he gaz'd on each bright charm, To shade his burning eyes her hand in dalliance stole.

And now she rais'd her rosy mouth to sip The nectar'd wave

Lyæus gave,

And from her eyelids, half-way clos'd,

Sent forth a melting gleam,

Which fell, like sun-dew, in the bowl: While her bright hair, in mazy flow

Of gold descending

Adown her cheek's luxurious glow,
Hung o'er the goblet's side,

And was reflected in its crystal tide,
Like a bright crocus flower,
Whose sunny leaves, at evening hour
With roses of Cyrene blending,1

Hang o'er the mirror of some silvery stream.

The Olympian cup

Shone in the hands

Of dimpled Hebe, as she wing'd her feet

Up

The empyreal mount,

To drain the soul-drops at their stellar fount;2 And still

As the resplendent rill

1 We learn from Theophrastus, that the roses of Cyrene mere particularly fragant. — Ευοσματα τα δε τα εν Κυρήνη ρόδα. * Heraclitus (Physicus) held the soul to be a spark of the stellar essence — "Scintilla stellaris essentiæ."- MACROBIUS, in Somn. Scip. lib. i. cap. 14.

* The country of the Hyperboreans. These people were supposed to be placed so far north that the north wind could not affect them; they lived longer than any other mortals; passed their whole time in music and dancing, &c. &c. But the most extravagant fiction related of them is that to which the two lines preceding allude. It was imagined that, instead of our vulgar atmosphere, the Hyperboreans breathed nothing but feathers! According to Herodotus and Pliny, this idea was suggested by the quantity of snow which was observed to fall in those regions; thus the former: Ta v Triga uzazov. τας της χίονα τους Σκύθας τε και τους περιοίκους δοκέω λέγειν.

Gush'd forth into the cup with mantling heat,

Her watchful care

Was still to cool its liquid fire

With snow-white sprinklings of that feathery

air

The children of the Pole respire,

In those enchanted lands, 3

Where life is all a spring, and north winds never blow.

But oh!

Bright Hebe, what a tear,

And what a blush were thine,

When, as the breath of every Grace
Wafted thy feet along the studded sphere,

With a bright cup for Jove himself to drink,
Some star, that shone beneath thy tread,
Raising its amorous head
To kiss those matchless feet,

Check'd thy career too fleet;
And all heaven's host of eyes
Entranc'd, but fearful all,

Saw thee, sweet Hebe, prostrate fall

Upon the bright floor of the azure skies; 4
Where, mid its stars, thy beauty lay,
As blossom, shaken from the spray
Of a spring thorn,

Lies mid the liquid sparkles of the morn.
Or, as in temples of the Paphian shade,
The worshippers of Beauty's queen behold
An image of their rosy idol, laid
Upon a diamond shrine.

The wanton wind,

Which had pursu'd the flying fair,
And sported mid the tresses unconfin'd
Of her bright hair,

Now, as she fell, -oh wanton breeze!
Ruffled the robe, whose graceful flow
Hung o'er those limbs of unsunn'd snow,
Purely as the Eleusinian veil

Hangs o'er the Mysteries! 5

-HERODOT. lib. iv. cap. 31. Ovid tells the fable otherwise: see Metamorph. lib. xv.

Mr. O'Halloran, and some other Irish antiquarians, have been at great expense of learning to prove that the strange country, where they took snow for feathers, was Ireland, and that the famous Abaris was an Irish Druid. Mr. Rowland, however, will have it that Abaris was a Welshman, and that his name is only a corruption of Ap Rees!

4 It is Servius, I believe, who mentions this unlucky trip which Hebe made in her occupation of cup-bearer; and Hoffman tells it after him: "Cum Hebe pocula Jovi administrans, perque lubricum minus cauté incedens, cecidisset," &c.

5 The arcane symbols of this ceremony were deposited in the cista, where they lay religiously concealed from the eyes of the profane. They were generally carried in the procession by an ass; and hence the proverb, which one may so often

In the Geoponica, lib. ii. cap. 17., there is a fable somewhat like this descent of the nectar to earth. E ougar TWY θεων ευωχευμένων, και του νεκταρος πολλού παρακειμένου, ανασκίρτησαν χορεία τον Έρωτα και συσσείσαι τω πτερω του κρα τήρος την βασιν, και περιτρέψαι μεν αυτόν το δε νέκταρ εις την γην εκχυθεν, κ. τ. λ. Vid. Autor. de Re Rust. edit. Cantab. 1704.

2 The constellation Lyra. The astrologers attribute great virtues to this sign in ascendenti, which are enumerated by Pontano, in his Urania:

Ecce novem cum pectine chordas
Emodulans, mulcetque novo vaga sidera cantu,
Quo captæ nascentum animæ concordia ducunt
Pectora, &c.

3 The Egyptians represented the dawn of day by a young

πολης παιδιον νεογνόν γράφοντας επί λωτω καθεζομενών. — Piutarch. περί του μη χραν εμμετρ See also his Treatise de Isid. et Osir. Observing that the lotos showed its head above water at sunrise, and sank again at his setting, they conceived the idea of consecrating this flower to Osiris, or the sun.

This symbol of a youth sitting upon a lotos is very frequent on the Abraxases, or Basilidian stones. See Montfaucon, tom. ii. planche 158., and the "Supplement," &c. tom. ü. lib. vii. chap. 5.

4 The ancients esteemed those flowers and trees the sweetest upon which the rainbow had appeared to rest; and the wood they chiefly burned in sacrifices, was that which the smile of Iris had consecrated. Plutarch. Sympos. lib. iv. cap. 2. where (as Vossius remarks) xasoves, instead of xalove.. is undoubtedly the genuine reading. See Vossius, for some curious particularities of the rainbow, De Origin. et Progress. Idololat. lib. iii. cap. 13.

A WARNING.

ΤΟ

OH fair as heaven and chaste as light!
Did nature mould thee all so bright,
That thou shouldst e'er be brought to weep
O'er languid virtue's fatal sleep,
O'er shame extinguish'd, honour fled,
Peace lost, heart wither'd, feeling dead?

No, no! a star was born with thee,
Which sheds eternal purity.
Thou hast, within those sainted eyes,
So fair a transcript of the skies,
In lines of light such heavenly lore,
That man should read them and adore.
Yet have I known a gentle maid
Whose mind and form were both array'd
In nature's purest light, like thine;
Who wore that clear, celestial sign,
Which seems to mark the brow that's fair
For destiny's peculiar care :
Whose bosom too, like Dian's own,
Was guarded by a sacred zone,
Where the bright gem of virtue shone;
Whose eyes had, in their light, a charm
Against all wrong, and guile, and harm.
Yet, hapless maid, in one sad hour,
These spells have lost their guardian power;
The gem has been beguil'd away;

Her eyes have lost their chast'ning ray;
The modest pride, the guiltless shame,
The smiles that from reflection came,
All, all have fled, and left her mind

A faded monument behind;
The ruins of a once pure shrine,
No longer fit for guest divine.
Oh! 'twas a sight I wept to see-
Heaven keep the lost one's fate from thee!

ΤΟ

'Tis time, I feel, to leave thee now, While yet my soul is something free; While yet those dangerous eyes allow

One minute's thought to stray from thee.