It said that I should have my eye-sight blinded

By you coming from Troy, yet it foretold
That you should pay the penalty for this
By wandering long over the homeless sea.

ULYSSES.

I bid thee weep-consider what I say;
I go towards the shore to drive my ship
To mine own land, o'er the Sicilian wave.

CYCLOPS.

710

Not so, if whelming you with this huge stone
I can crush you and all your men together;
I will descend upon the shore, though blind,
Groping my way adown the steep ravine.

CHORUS.

And we, the shipmates of Ulysses now,
Will serve our Bacchus all our happy lives.

EPIGRAMS.

TO STELLA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO.

THOU wert the morning star among the living, Ere thy fair light had fled ;

Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus,

giving

New splendour to the dead.

KISSING HELENA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO.

KISSING Helena, together

With my kiss, my

soul beside it

Came to my lips, and there I kept it,For the poor thing had wandered thither, To follow where the kiss should guide it, O, cruel I, to intercept it!

SPIRIT OF PLATO.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK.

EAGLE! why soarest thou above that tomb?
To what sublime and star-y-paven home
Floatest thou?

I am the image of swift Plato's spirit,
Ascending heaven-Athens doth inherit

His corpse

below.

CIRCUMSTANCE.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK.

A MAN who was about to hang himself, Finding a purse, then threw away his rope; The owner, coming to reclaim his pelf,

The halter found and used it. So is Hope Changed for Despair--one laid upon the shelf, We take the other. Under heaven's high cope Fortune is God-all you endure and do Depends on circumstance as much as you.

FRAGMENT OF THE

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF ADONIS.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF BION.

I MOURN Adonis dead-loveliest Adonis-
Dead, dead Adonis-and the Loves lament.-
Sleep no more Venus, wrapped in purple woof-
Wake violet-stolèd queen, and weave the crown
Of Death,-'tis Misery calls,--for he is dead.

The lovely one lies wounded in the mountains, His white thigh struck with the white tooth; he scarce

Yet breathes; and Venus hangs in agony there.
The dark blood wanders o'er his snowy limbs,
His eyes beneath their lids are lustreless,
The rose has fled from his wan lips, and there
That kiss is dead, which Venus gathers yet.

A deep, deep wound Adonis . . . A deeper Venus bears upon her heart. See, his beloved dogs are gathering roundThe Oread nymphs are weeping-Aphrodite With hair unbound is wandering through the woods,

Wildered, ungirt, unsandalled-the thorns

pierce

Her hastening feet and drink her sacred blood. Bitterly screaming out she is driven on

20

Through the long vales; and her Assyrian boy, Her love, her husband calls-the purple blood From her struck thigh stains her1 white navel

now,

For her in this line and the next we ought to read his; but her is what Shelley wrote.-ED.

Her bosom, and her neck before like snow.

Alas for Cytherea-the Loves mourn-
The lovely, the beloved is gone—and now
Her sacred beauty vanishes away.

For Venus whilst Adonis lived was fair-
Alas her loveliness is dead with him.

The oaks and mountains cry Ai! ai! Adonis! 30
The springs their waters change to tears and

Who will weep not thy dreadful woe, O Venus? Soon as she saw and knew the mortal wound Of her Adonis- -saw the life-blood flow

From his fair thigh, now wasting, wailing loud She clasped him and cried Stay, Adonis!

Stay dearest one,

and mix my lips with thineWake yet a while Adonis-oh but once, That I may kiss thee now for the last timeBut for as long as one short kiss may liveO let thy breath flow from thy dying soul Even to my mouth and heart, that I That...

may suck

FRAGMENT OF THE

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF BION.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.

YE Dorian woods and waves lament aloud,Augment your tide, O streams, with fruitless tears,

For the beloved Bion is no more.

Let every tender herb and plant and flower,
From each dejected bud and drooping bloom,
Shed dews of liquid sorrow, and with breath
Of melancholy sweetness on the wind
Diffuse its languid love; let roses blush,
Anemones grow paler for the loss

Their dells have known; and thou, O hyacinth,
Utter thy legend now-yet more, dumb flower,
Than "ah! alas!"-thine is no

grief

Bion the [sweetest singer] is no more.

common

PAN, ECHO, AND THE SATYR.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.

PAN loved his neighbour Echo-but that child
Of Earth and Air pined for the Satyr leaping;
The Satyr loved with wasting madness wild
The bright nymph Lyda,-and so three went
weeping.

As Pan loved Echo, Echo loved the Satyr,
The Satyr Lyda-and so love consumed

them.

And thus to each-which was a woeful matterTo bear what they inflicted Justice doomed

them;

For in as much as each might hate the lover, Each loving, so was hated.-Ye that love

not

Be warned-in thought turn this example

over,

That when ye love-the like return ye prove not.