From Bermuda, January 1804.

When close they reefed the timid sail, When, every plank complaining loud,

We laboured in the midnight gale, And even our haughty main-mast bowed!

The tetractys, or sacred number of the Pythagoreans, on which they solemnly swore, and which they called mayav aevaov dvorews, the fountain of perennial nature.' Lucian has ridiculed this religious arithmetic very finely in his Sale of Philosophers.

2 This diadem is intended to represent the analogy between the notes of music and the prismatic colours. We find in Plutarch a vague intimation of this kindred harmony in colours and sounds. Όψις τε και ακον, μετα φωνης τε και φωτος την ἁρμονιαν επιφαινουσι. De Musica.

Cassiodorus, whose idea I may be supposed to have borrowed, says, in a letter upon music to Boetius: 'Ut diadema oculis, varia luce gemmarum, sic cythara diversitate soni, blanditur auditui.' This is indeed the only tolerable thought in the letter. Lib. 2. Variar.

3 This gentleman is attached to the British consulate at Norfolk. His talents are worthy of

wind,

In songs elysian lapped my mind! She opened, with her golden key, The casket where my memory lays Those little gems of poesy,

Which time has saved from ancient days!

Take one of these, to Lais sung,
I wrote it while my hammock swung,
As one might write a dissertation
Upon suspended animation!'

·

a much higher sphere; but the excellent dispositions of the family with whom he resides, and the cordial repose he enjoys amongst some of the kindest hearts in the world, should be almost enough to atone to him for the worst caprices of fortune. The consul himself, Colonel Hamilton, is one among the very few instances of a man, ardently loyal to his king, and yet beloved by the Americans. His house is the very temple of hospitality, and I sincerely pity the heart of that stranger who, warm from the welcome of such a board, and with the taste of such Madeira still upon his lips-' col dolce in bocca'could sit down to write a libel on his host, in the true spirit of a modern philosophist. See the Travels of the Duke de la Rochefoucault Liancourt, vol. ii.

We were seven days on our passage from Norfolk to Bermuda, during three of which we were forced to lay-to in a gale of wind. The

SWEETLY1 you kiss, my Lais dear! But, while you kiss, I feel a tear, Bitter as those when lovers part, In mystery from your eyelid start! Sadly you lean your head to mine, And round my neck in silence twine, Your hair along my bosom spread, All humid with the tears you shed! Have I not kissed those lids of snow? Yet still, my love, like founts they flow,

Bathing our cheeks, whene'er they

meet

Why is it thus ? do tell me, sweet!
Ah, Lais! are my bodings right?
Am I to lose you? is to-night
Our last-go, false to Heaven and me!
Your very tears are treachery.

SUCH, while in air I floating hung, Such was the strain, Morgante mio! The muse and I together sung,

With Boreas to make out the trio. But, bless the little fairy isle !

How sweetly, after all our ills, We saw the dewy morning smile Serenely o'er its fragrant hills ! And felt the pure elastic flow Of airs, that round this Eden blow With honey freshness, caught by stealth

Warm from the very lips of health?

Driver sloop of war, in which I went, was built | at Bermuda of cedar, and is accounted an excellent sea-boat. She was then commanded by my very regretted friend Captain Compton, who in July last was killed aboard the Lily, in an action with a French privateer. Poor Compton! he fell a victim to the strange impolicy of allowing such a miserable thing as the Lily to remain in the service; so small, crank, and unmanageable, that a well-manned merchantman was at any

time a match for her.

This epigram is by Paulus Silentiarius, and may be found in the Analecta of Brunck, vol. iii. p. 72. But as the reading there is somewhat different from what I have followed in this translation, I shall give it as I had it in my memory at the time, and as it is in Heinsius, who, I believe, first produced the epigram. See his

Poemata.

'Ηδυ μεν εστι φιλημα το Λαίδος ήδν δε αυτών Ηπιοδινητων δακρυ χεεις βλεφάρων,

Και πολυ κιχλίζουσα σοβεις ευβοστρυχον αιγλην Ημετέρα κεφαλην δηρον ερεισάμενη.

|

Oh! could you view the scenery dear,

That now beneath my window lies, You'd think that Nature lavished here

Her purest wave, her softest skies, To make a heaven for Love to sigh in, For bards to live and saints to die in! Close to my wooded bank below,

In glassy calm the waters sleep, And to the sunbeam proudly show

The coral rocks they love to steep!? The fainting breeze of morning fails, The drowsy boat moves slowly past, And I can almost touch its sails

That languish idly round the mast. The sun has now profusely given The flashes of a noontide heaven, And, as the wave reflects his beams, Another heaven its surface seems! Blue light and clouds of silvery tears So pictured o'er the waters lie, That every languid bark appears

To float along a burning sky! Oh! for the boat the angel gave3

To him, who in his heavenward flight, Sailed, o'er the Sun's ethereal wave,

To planet-isles of odorous light! Sweet Venus, what a clime he found Within thy orb's anbrosial round !+ There spring the breezes, rich and

2 The water is so clear around the island, that and as we entered the harbour, they appeared to the rocks are seen beneath to a very great depth; us so near the surface, that it seemed impossible cessity, of course, for heaving the lead; and the negro pilot, looking down at the rocks from the bow of the ship, takes her through this difficult navigation with a skill and confidence which seem to astonish some of the oldest sailors.

we should not strike on them. There is no ne

In Kircher's Ecstatic Journey to Heaven, Cosmiel, the genins of the world, gives Theodidactus a boat of asbestos, with which he embarks into the regions of the sun. Vides (says Cosmiel) hanc asbestinam naviculam commoditati tuæ præparatum.'-Itinerar. i. dial. i. cap. 5. There are some very strange fancies in this work of Kircher.

4 When the genius of the world and his fellow

queen!

Thou send'st so often to the bed Of her I love, with spell unseen,

Thy planet's brightening balm to shed;

To make the eye's enchantment clearer; To give the cheek one rosebud more, And bid that flushing lip be dearer, Which had been, oh! too dear be fore!

But, whither means the muse to roam? 'Tis time to call the wanderer home. Who could have ever thought to search her

Up in the clouds with Father Kircher? So, health and love to all your mansion! Long may the bowl that pleasures bloom in,

The flow of heart, the soul's expansion, Mirth, and song, your board illumine! Fare you well-remember too,

When cups are flowing to the brim, That here is one who drinks to you, And, oh! as warmly drink to him.

Or all the boast of Virtue's o'er; Go--hie thee to the sage's book,

And learn from him to feel no more!

I cannot warn thee! every touch,
That brings my pulses close to thine,
Tells me I want thy aid as much,
Oh! quite as much, as thou dost
mine!

Yet stay, dear love-one effort yetA moment turn those eyes away, And let me, if I can, forget

The light that leads my soul astray !

Thou say'st that we were born to meet, That our hearts bear one common

seal,

Oh, lady! think, how man's deceit

Can seem to sigh and feign to feel! When o'er thy face some gleam of thought,

Like day-beams through the morning air,

Hath gradual stole, and I have caught The feeling ere it kindled there: The sympathy I then betrayed,

Perhaps was but the child of art; The guile of one who long hath played With all these wily nets of heart.

Oh! thou hast not my virgin vow!

Though few the years I yet have told, Canst thou believe I lived till now,

With loveless heart or senses cold?

No-many a throb of bliss and pain,

For many a maid, my soul hath proved;

With some I wantoned wild and vain, While some I truly, dearly loved!

The cheek to thine I fondly lay,

To theirs hath been as fondly laid; The words to thee I warmly say,

To them have been as warmly said.

of the heavens, a casuistical question cecurs to Theodidactus, and he asks Whether baptism may be performed with the waters of Venus ?''An aquis globi Veneris baptismus institui pos sit ?'-to which the genius answers, 'Certainly.'

Then scorn at once a languid heart,

Which long hath lost its early spring; Think of the pure bright soul thou art, And-keep the ring, oh! keep the ring.

Enough now, turn thine eyes again; What, still that look and still that sigh!

Dost thou not feel my counsel then?
Oh no, beloved!-nor do I.

While thus to mine thy bosom lies, While thus our breaths commingling glow,

'Twere more than woman to be wise, "Twere more than man to wish thee

so!

Did we not love so true, so dear,

This lapse could never be forgiven ; But hearts so fond and lips so nearGive me the ring, and now-oh heaven!

ON SEEING

ΤΟ

But, 'twas my doom to err with one

In every look so like to thee, That, oh! beneath the blessed sun, So fair there are but thou and she! Whate'er may be her angel birth,

She was thy lovely perfect twin, And wore the only shape on earth That could have charmed my soul to sin!

Your eyes!-the eyes of languid doves Were never half so like each other! The glances of the baby loves

Resemble less their warm-eyed

mother!

Her lip!-- oh, call me not false-hearted, When such a lip I fondly pressed; 'Twas Love some melting cherry parted,

Gave thee one half and her the rest! And when, with all thy murmuring

tone

AND A RICH GIRDLE.

Ap. Nicephor. in Oneirocritico.

PUT off the vestal veil, nor, oh!
Let weeping angels view it;
Your cheeks belie its virgin snow,
And blush repenting through it.

Put off the fatal zone you wear;
The lucid pearls around it

Are tears that fell from Virtue there
The hour that love unbound it.

ΤΟ

WHEN I loved you, I can't but allow
I had many an exquisite minute ;
But the scorn that I feel for you now
Hath even more luxury in it!
Thus, whether we're on or we're off,
Some witchery seems to await you;
To love you is pleasant enough,
And, oh! 'tis delicious to hate you!

FROM THE GREEK OF MELEAGER. FILL high the cup with liquid flame, And speak my Heliodora's name; Repeat its magic o'er and o'er, And let the sound my lips adore,

The swell of yonder foaming billow,
Resembles not the happy sigh

That rapture moves.

Yet do I feel more tranquil now
Amid the gloomy wilds of ocean,
In this dark hour,

Than when, in transport's young emotion,

I've stolen, beneath the evening star,
To Julia's bower.

Oh there's a holy calm profound
In awe like this, that ne'er was given
To rapture's thrill;

'Tis as a solemn voice from heaven,
And the soul, listening to the sound,
Lies mute and still!

'Tis true, it talks of danger nigh,
Of slumbering with the dead to-morrow
In the cold deep,
Where pleasure's throb or tears of sor-

row

No more shall wake the heart or eye, But all must sleep!

Well!-there are some, thou stormy bed,

To whom thy sleep would be a trea

sure:

ODES TO NEA.

WRITTEN AT BERMUDA.

NEA TYPANNEI.

Euripid. Medea, v. 937.

NAY, tempt me not to love again : There was a time when love was sweet;

Dear Nea had I known thee then,

Our souls had not been slow to meet ! But, oh! this weary heart hath run

So many a time the rounds of pain, Not even for thee, thou lovely one!

Would I endure such pangs again.