There shone the image of the master-mind; There earth, there heaven, there ocean, he designed; The unwearied sun, the moon completely round; Two golden talents lay amidst in sight, The prize of him who best adjudged the right. Another part-a prospect differing far The starry lights that heaven's high convex Glowed with refulgent arms and horrid war: crowned; The Pleiads, Hyads, with the northern team, Two cities radiant on the shield appear- row Stand in their porches and enjoy the show. There in the forum swarm a numerous train, And bade the public and the laws decide; Two mighty hosts a leaguered town embrace, And one would pillage, one would burn, the place. Meantime, the townsmen, armed with silent care, A secret ambush on the foe prepare; Their wives, their children and the watchful band Of trembling parents on the turrets stand; They march, by Pallas and by Mars made bold. Gold were the gods, their radiant garments gold, And gold their armor: these the squadron led, August, divine, superior, by the head; A place for ambush fit they found, and stood, Covered with shields, beside a silver flood; Two spies at distance lurk, and watchful seem If sheep or oxen seek the winding stream; Soon the white flocks proceeded o'er the plains, And steers slow-moving, and two shepherdswains; Behind them piping on their reeds they go, Whole flocks and herds lie bleeding on the plains, And all amidst them, dead, the shepherdswains; The bellowing oxen the besiegers hear; war; They fight, they fall, beside the silver flood: One reared a dagger at a captive's breast; Now here, now there, the carcases they tore: gore; With sweeping stroke the mowers strow the lands; The gatherers follow and collect in bands; And last the children, in whose arms are borne Too short to gripe them-the brown sheaves of corn; The rustic monarch of the field descries With silent glee the heaps around him rise; A ready banquet on the turf is laid Beneath an ample oak's expanded shade; The victim ox the sturdy youth prepare, The reaper's due repast, the women's care. And the whole war came out and met the Next, ripe in yellow gold, a vineyard shines, Bent with the ponderous harvest of its eye, And each bold figure seemed to live or die. A field deep-furrowed next the god designed, And turn their crooked yokes on every side; The hearty draught rewards, renews their toil, vines; A deeper dye the dangling clusters show, grace: To this, one pathway, gently winding, leads, Where march a train with baskets on their heads Fair maids and blooming youths that smiling bear The purple product of the autumnal year; Then back the turning ploughshares cleave To these a youth awakes the warbling strings, the soil; Behind, the rising earth in ridges rolled And sable looked, though formed of molten gold. Another field rose high with waving grain : With bended sickles stand the reaper twain; Here stretched in ranks the levelled swaths are found, Sheaves heaped on sheaves here thicken up the ground; Whose tender lay the fate of Linus sings; In measured dance behind him move the train, Tune soft the voice and answer to the strain. Here herds of oxen march, erect and bold, Rear high their horns and seem to low in gold, And speed to meadows on whose sounding shores A rapid torrent through the rushes roars; Four golden herdsmen as their guardians | So whirls a wheel in giddy circle tossed, stand, And nine sour dogs complete the rustic band; He roared in vain the dogs, the men, with- And, rapid as it runs, the single spokes are The gazing multitudes admire around They tore his flesh and drank his sable And general songs the sprightly revel end. blood; The dogs oft cheered in vain desert the prey, Next this the eye the art of Vulcan leads Deep through fair forests and a length of meads, And stalls and folds and scattered cots between, And fleecy flocks that whiten all the scene. A figured dance succeeds-such one was seen In lofty Gnossus for the Cretan queen, The maids in soft simars of linen dressed, Of these the sides adorned with swords of gold, That, glittering gay, from silver belts de pend ; Now all at once they rise, at once descend, Thus the broad shield complete the artist crowned With his last hand, and poured the ocean round: In living silver seemed the waves to roll, And beat the buckler's verge and bound the whole. This done, whate'er a warrior's use requires He forged-the cuirass that outshone the fires, The greaves of ductile tin, the helm im- With various sculpture and the golden crest. T Translation of ALEXANDER POPE. THE NORTHERN LIGHTS. With well-taught feet now shape in oblique claim the Arctic came the sun ways, Confusedly regular, the moving maze; And undistinguished blend the flying ring: With banners of the burning zone: They froze beneath the light of stars; BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR. IMMORTALITY. F human souls, why not an- O'er ghastly ruin frowning from his throne? Shall we this moment gaze on God in man, The next lose man for ever in the dust? As light and heat essential to the sun, These to the soul. And why, if souls expire? How little lovely here! how little known! Small knowledge we dig up with endless toil, And love unfeigned may purchase perfect hate. Why starved on earth our angel appetites, While brutal are indulged their fulsome fill? From dust we disengage, or This cannot be. To love and know, in man, man mistakes, And there where least his judgment fears a And these demonstrate boundless objects too. Objects, powers, appetites, Heaven suits in flaw. With doubts, fears, fruitless hopes, regrets, despairs, Mankind's peculiar, reason's precious, dower. No foreign clime they ransack for their robes, Nor brothers cite to the litigious bar; THE LION AND THE CUB. OW fond are men of rule and place HOW Who court it from the mean and base! Their good is good entire, unmixed, un- They love the cellar's vulgar joke, marred; They find a paradise in every field, On boughs forbidden where no curses hang; Their ill no more than strikes the sense, unstretched By previous dread or murmur in the rear; When the worst comes, it comes unfeared: one stroke And lose their hours in ale and smoke; So poor, so paltry, is their pride— If these can read, to these I write, Begins and ends their woe; they die but Avoided all the lion-kind; once. Blessed, incommunicable privilege, for which Proud man, who rules the globe and reads the stars, Philosopher or hero, sighs in vain! Account for this prerogative in brutes. And re-enthrones us in supremacy Of joy even here! Admit immortal life, Fond of applause, he sought the feasts He caught their manners, looks and airs, Are trumpets of their own disgrace."- Heaven our reward for heaven enjoyed below! Lions and noble beasts despise." EDWARD YOUNG. JOHN GAY. |