REPRINTED FROM "THE FRIEND."

OH! pleasant exercise of hope and joy! For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood

Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!-oh!
times

In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert
her rights,

When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress-to assist the work
Which then was going forward in her
name!

Not favored spots alone, but the whole earth,

The beauty wore of promise, that which

sets

(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself)
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon
dreams,

The playfellows of fancy, who had made All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength

Their ministers,-who in lordly wise had

stirred

Among the grandest objects of the sense, And dealt with whatsoever they found there

As if they had within some lurking right To wield it--they, too, who, of gentle mood,

YES, it was the Mountain Echo,
Solitary, clear, profound,
Answering to the shouting Cuckoo,
Giving to her sound for sound!
Unsolicited reply

To a babbling wanderer sent:
Like her ordinary cry,
Like-but oh, how different!

Hears not also mortal Life?
Hear not we, unthinking Creatures!
Slaves of folly, love, or strife-
Voices of two different natures?

Have not we too?-yes, we have
Answers, and we know not whence:
Echoes from beyond the grave,
Recognized intelligence!

Such rebounds our inward ear
Catches sometimes from afar-
Listen, ponder, hold them dear;
For of God,-of God they are.
1806.

Not to appal me have the gods bestowed
This precious boon; and blest a sad abode."

"Great Jove, Laodamia! doth not leave
His gifts imperfect :-Spectre though I be.
I am not sent to scare thee or deceive;
But in reward of thy fidelity.

And something also did my worth obtain;
For fearless virtue bringeth boundless gain.
Thou knowest, the Delphic oracle foretold
That the first Greek who touched the Tro-
jan strand

Should die; but me the threat could not withhold:

A generous cause a victim did demand; And forth I leapt upon the sandy plain; A self-devoted chief-by Hector slain." "Supreme of Heroes - bravest, noblest, Thy matchless courage I bewail no more, Which then, when tens of thousands were deprest

best!

By doubt, propelled thee to the fatal shore ; Thou found'st-and I forgive thee - here thou art

A nobler counsellor than my poor heart. But thou, though capable of sternest deed, Wert kind as resolute, and good as brave; And he, whose power restores thee, hath decreed

Though should'st elude the malice of the grave:

Redundant are thy locks, thy lips as fair
As when their breath enriched Thessalian

air.

No Spectre greets me-no vain Shadow this;

Come, blooming Hero, place thee by my side!

Give, on this well known couch, one nuptial kiss

To me, this day, a second time thy bride!"

Jove frowned in heaven: the conscious Parcæ threw

Upon those roseate lips a Stygian hue.

"This visage tells me that my doom is past:

Nor should the change be mourned, even if the joys

Of sense were able to return as fast
And surely as they vanish. Earth destroys
Those raptures duly-Erebus disdains:
Calm pleasures there abide-majestic pains.

Be taught, O faithful Consort, to control
Rebellious passion for the Gods approve
The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul;
A fervent, not ungovernable, love.
Thy transports moderate; and meekly

mourn

The Gods to us are merciful-and they
Yet furtiver may relent: for mightier far
Than strength of nerve and sinew, or the
sway

Of magic potent over sun and star,
Is love, though oft to agony distrest,
And though his favorite seat be feeble
woman's breast.

But if thou goest, I follow" "Peace!" he said,

She looked upon him and was calmed and cheered;

The ghastly color from his lips had fled; In his deportment, shape, and mien, appeared

Elysian beauty, melancholy grace. Brought from a pensive though a happy place.

He spake of love, such love as spirits feel In worlds whose course is equable and pure; No fears to beat away-no strife to healThe past unsigh'd for, and the future sure; Spake of heroic arts in graver mood Revived, with finer harmony pursued;

Of all that is most beauteous-imaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air,

Climes which the sun, who sheds the And fields invested with purpureal gleams; Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey. brightest day

Yet there the Soul shall enter which hath earned

That privilege by virtue.-" Ill," said he, "The end of man's existence I discerned, Who from ignoble games and revelry Could draw, when we had parted, vain de light.

While tears were thy best pastime, day and night;

And while my youthful peers before my

What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained. The wished-for wind was given:-I then revolved

The oracle, 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 foun tains, flowers;

My new-planned cities, and unfinished

been years;

And him no mortal effort can detain: Swift, toward the reaims that know not earthly day,

He through the portal takes his silent way, And on the palace-floor a lifeless corse She lay.

Thus, all in vain exhorted and reproved, She perished; and, as for a wilful crime, By the just Gods whom no weak pity moved, Was doomed to wear out her appointed time,

Apart from happy Ghosts, that 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.

XXXII.

DION.

(SEE PLUTARCH.)

I.

SERENE, and fitted to embrace,
Where'er he turned, a swan-like grace
Of haughtiness without pretence,
And to unfold a still magnificence,
Was princely Dion, in the power
And beauty of his happier hour.
And what pure homage then did wait
On Dion's virtues! while the lunar beam
Of Plato's genius, from its lofty sphere,
Fell round him in the grove of Academe,
Softening their inbred dignity austere→→→

That he, not too elate

With self-sufficing solitude,
But with majestic lowliness endued,

Might in the universal bosom reign, And from affectionate observance gain Help, under every change of adverse fate.

The gazers feel; and, rushing to the plain,
Salute those strangers as a holy train
Or blest procession (to the Immortals dear)
That brought their precious liberty again.
Lo! when the gates are entered, on each
hand,

Down the long street, rich goblets filled with wine

In seemly order stand,
On tables set, as if for rites divine;-
And, as the great Deliverer marches by,
He looks on festal ground with fruits
bestrown;

And flowers are on his person thrown
In boundless prodigality;

Nor doth the general voice abstain from

III.

Exclaimed the Chieftain--"let me rather

see

mourn

Ilissus, bending o'er thy classic urn! Mourn, and lament for him whose spirit dreads

Your once sweet memory, studious walks and shades!

For him who to divinity aspired,

Not on the breath of popular applause.
But through dependence on the sacred laws
Framed in the schools where Wisdom
dwells retired,

Intent to trace the ideal path of right
(More fair than heaven's broad causeway
paved with stars)

Which Dion learned to measure with sublime delight :

:

But He hath overleaped the eternal bars; And, following guides whose craft holds no

consent

The torch that flames with many a lurid flake,

And the long train of doleful pageantry Which they behold whom vengeful Furies haunt;

Who, while they struggle from the scourge to flee,

Move where the blasted soil is not unworn, And, in their anguish, bear what other minds have borne!"

Ill-fated Chief! there are whose hopes are built

Upon the ruins of thy glorious name;
Who, through the portal of one moment's
guilt,

Pursue thee with their deadly aim!
O matchless perfidy! portentous lust
Of monstrous crime !-that horror-striking
blade,

Drawn in defiance of the Gods, hath laid
The noble Syracusan low in dust!
Shudder'd the walls-the marble city wept-
And sylvan places heaved a pensive sigh;
But in calm peace the appointed Victim
slept,

As he had fallen in magnanimity;
Of spirit too capacious to require
That Destiny her course should change; too
just

To his own native greatness to desire
That wretched boon, days lengthened by
mistrust.

So were the hopeless troubles, that involved The soul of Dion, instantly dissolved. Released from life and cares of princely state,

He left this moral grafted on his Fate: