To welter in the combat's foremost thrust,

His hoary head dishevel'd in the dust,

And venerable bosom bleeding bare.

But youth's fair form, though fallen, is ever fair, And beautiful in death the boy appears,

The hero boy, that dies in blooming years:
In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears,
More sacred than in life, and lovelier far,
For having perish'd in the front of war.

SPECIMENS OF TRANSLATION

FROM MEDEA.

Σκαιους δε λεγων, κουδέν τι σοφους
Τους προσθε βροτους ουκ αν αμαρτοις.
Medea, v. 194. p. 63. Glasg. edit.

TELL me, ye bards, whose skill sublime

First charm'd the ear of youthful Time,

With numbers wrapt in heavenly fire,

Who bade delighted echo swell

The trembling transports of the lyre,

The murmur of the shell

Why to the burst of Joy alone

Accords sweet Music's soothing tone?
Why can no bard, with magic strain,
In slumbers steep the heart of pain?
While varied tones obey your sweep,
The mild, the plaintive, and the deep,
Bends not despairing Grief to hear
Your golden lute, with ravish'd ear?

Oh! has your sweetest shell no power to bind

The fiercer pangs that shake the mind,

And lull the wrath at whose command

Murder bares her gory

hand?

When flush'd with joy, the rosy throng
Weave the light dance, ye swell the song!
Cease, ye vain warblers! cease to charm
The breast with other raptures warm!
Cease! till your hand with magic strain
In slumbers steep the heart of pain!

SPEECH OF THE CHORUS IN THE SAME TRAGEDY,

TO DISSUADE MEDEA FROM HER PURPOSE OF

PUTTING HER CHILDREN TO DEATH, AND

FLYING FOR PROTECTION TO ATHENS.

O HAGGARD queen! to Athens dost thou guide Thy glowing chariot, steep'd in kindred gore; Or seek to hide thy damned parricide

Where Peace and Mercy dwell for evermore ?

The land where Truth, pure, precious, and sublime, Woos the deep silence of sequester'd bowers,

And warriors, matchless since the first of time,

Rear their bright banners o'er unconquer'd towers!

Where joyous youth, to Music's mellow strain,
Twines in the dance with nymphs for ever fair,
While Spring eternal on the lilied plain,

Waves amber radiance through the fields of air!

The tuneful Nine (so sacred legends tell)

First waked their heavenly lyre these scenes among; Still in your greenwood bowers they love to dwell; Still in your vales they swell the choral song!

But there the tuneful, chaste, Pierian fair,

The guardian nymphs of green Parnassus, now Sprung from Harmonia, while her graceful hair Waved in bright auburn o'er her polish'd brow!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Where silent vales, and glades of green array,

The murmuring wreaths of cool Cephisus lave, There, as the muse hath sung, at noon of day,

The Queen of Beauty bow'd to taste the wave;