"TWAS in the fair Aspasia's bower,
That Love and Learning many an hour
In dalliance met, and Learning smiled
With rapture on the playful child,
Who wanton stole to find his nest
Within a fold of Learning's vest!
There, as the listening statesman hung
In transport on Aspasia's tongue,
The destinies of Athens took
Their colour from Aspasia's look.
Oh, happy time! when laws of state,
When all that ruled the country's fate,
In glory, quiet, or alarms,
Was planned between two snowy arms!
Sweet times! you could not always last-
And yet, oh! yet, you are not past;
Though we have lost the sacred mould
In which their men were cast of old,
Woman, dear woman, still the same,
While lips are balm and looks are flame,
While man possesses heart or eyes,
Woman's bright empire never dies!
Fanny, my love, they ne'er shall say
That beauty's charm hath passed away;
No-give the universe a soul
Attuned to woman's soft control,
And Fanny hath the charm, the skill,
To wield a universe at will!
THE GRECIAN GIRL'S DREAM OF THE BLESSED ISLANDS.1
Πυθαγόρης, όσσοι τε χορον στηριξαν ερωτος.
AπоλλшV πеρι ПAwrivov.-Oracul. Metric. a Joan. Opsop, collecta.
WAS it the moon, or was it morning's ray,
That called thee, dearest, from these arms away?
I lingered still, in all the murmuring rest,
The languor of a soul too richly blest!
Upon my breath thy sigh yet faintly hung;
Thy name yet died in whispers o'er my tongue;
1 It was imagined by some of the ancients that ingly, we find that the word Keavos was somethere is an ethereal ocean above us, and that the times synonymous with anp, and that death was sun and moon are two floating luminous islands, not unfrequently called Neavolo moρos, or the in which the spirits of the blessed reside. Accord-passage of the ocean.'
I heard thy lyre, which thou hadst left behind,
In amorous converse with the breathing wind;
Quick to my heart I pressed the shell divine,
And with a lip yet glowing warm from thine,
I kissed its every chord, while every kiss
Shed o'er the chord some dewy print of bliss.
Then soft to thee I touched the fervid lyre,
Which told such melodies, such notes of fire,
As none but chords that drank the burning dews
Of kisses dear as ours could e'er diffuse !
Oh love! how blissful is the bland repose
That soothing follows upon rapture's close,
Like a soft twilight, o'er the mind to shed
Mild melting traces of the transport fled !
While thus I lay, in this voluptuous calm,
A drowsy languor steeped my eyes in balm,
Upon my lap the lyre in murmurs fell,
While, faintly wandering o'er its silver shell,
My fingers soon their own sweet requiem played,
And slept in music which themselves had made!
Then, then, my Theon, what a heavenly dream!
I saw two spirits on the lunar beam,
Two winged boys, descending from above,
And gliding to my bower with looks of love,
Like the young genii, who repose their wings
All day in Amatha's luxurious springs,1
And rise at midnight, from the tepid rill,
To cool their plumes upon some moonlight hill!
Soft o'er my brow, which kindled with their sighs,
Awhile they played; then gliding through my eyes
(Where the bright babies for a moment hung,
Like those thy lip hath kissed, thy lyre hath sung),
To that dim mansion of my breast they stole,
Where, wreathed in blisses, lay my captive soul.
Swift at their touch dissolved the ties that clung
So sweetly round her, and aloft she sprung!
Exulting guides, the little genii flew
Through paths of light, refreshed with starry dew,
And fanned by airs of that ambrosial breath,
On which the free soul banquets after death!
Thou know'st, my love, beyond our clouded skies,
As bards have dreamed, the spirits' kingdom lies,
Through that fair clime a sea of ether rolls,
Gemmed with bright islands, where the hallowed souls,
Whom life hath wearied in its race of hours,
Repose for ever in unfading bowers!
1 Eunapius, in his Life of Jamblichur, tells us of two beautiful little spirits or loves, which Jamblichus raised by enchantment from the warm springs at Gadara; 'dicens astantibus (says the
author of the Dii Fatidici, p. 160) illos esse loci Genios:' which words, however, are not in Eunapius.
I find from Cellarius, that Amatha, in the
That very orb, whose solitary light
So often guides thee to my arms at night,
Is no chill planet, but an isle of love,
Floating in splendour through those seas above!
Thither, I thought, we winged our airy way,
Mild o'er its valleys streamed a silvery day,
While all around, on lily beds of rest,
Reclined the spirits of the immortal Blest !1
Oh! there I met those few congenial maids,
Whom love hath warmed, in philosophic shades;
There still Leontium, 2 on her sage's breast,
Found lore and love, was tutored and caressed;
And there the twine of Pythia's 3 gentle arms
Repaid the zeal which deified her charms!
The Attic Master,4 in Aspasia's eyes,
Forgot the toil of less endearing ties;
While fair Theano, innocently fair,
Played with the ringlets of her Samian's hair,"
Who, fixed by love, at length was all her own,
And passed his spirit through her lips alone!
Oh Samian sage whate'er thy glowing thought
Of mystic Numbers hath divinely wrought,
The One that's formed of Two who dearly love,
Is the best number Heaven can boast above!
neighbourhood of Gadara, was also celebrated for its warm springs, and I have preferred it as a more poetical name than Gadara.
There were various opinions among the ancients with respect to their lunar establishment: some made it an elysium, and others a purgatory; while some supposed it to be a kind of entrepôt between heaven and earth, where souls which had left their bodies, and those that were on their way to join them, were deposited in the valleys of Hecate, and remained till further orders. Τοις περι σεληνην αερι λέγειν αυτας κατοικείν, και απ' αυτης κατω χωρείν εις την TEрLYELOV YEVEσw.-Stob. lib. i. Eclog. Physic.
2 The pupil and mistress of Epicurus, who called her his dear little Leontium' (Acovrapcov), as appears by a fragment of one of his Letters in Laertius. This Leontium was a woman of talent; 'she had the impudence (says Cicero) to write against Theophrastus; and, at the same time, Cicero gives her a name which is neither polite nor translateable. Meretricula etiam Leontium contra Theophrastum scribere ausa est.'- De Natur. Deor. She left a daughter, called Danae, who was just as rigid an Epicurean as her mother; something like Wieland's Danae in Agathon.
"It would sound much better, I think, if the name were Leontia, as it occurs the first time in Laertius; but M. Menage will not hear of this reading.
3 Pythia was a woman whom Aristotle loved, and to whom, after her death, he paid divine honours, solemnizing her memory by the same sacrifices which the Athenians offered to the goddess Ceres. For this impious gallantry the
philosopher was of course censured. It would be well, however, if some of our modern Stagyrites had a little of this superstition about the memory of their mistresses.
Socrates, who used to console himself in the society of Aspasia for those 'less endearing ties' which he found at home with Xantippe. For an account of this extraordinary creature, Aspasia, and her school of erudite luxury at Athens, see L'Histoire de l'Académie, etc., tom. xxxi. p. 69. Ségur rather fails on the subject of Aspasia. Les Femmes, tom. 1. p. 122.
The author of the Voyage du Monde de Descartes has also placed those philosophers in the moon, and has allotted Seigneuries to them, as well as to the astronomers (part 2, p. 143); but he ought not to have forgotten their wives and mistresses; curæ non ipsa in morte relinquunt.'
5 There are some sensible letters extant under
the name of this fair Pythagorean. They are addressed to her female friends upon the educa tion of children, the treatment of servants, etc. One, in particular, to Nicostrata, whose husband had given her reasons for jealousy, contains such truly considerate and rational advice, that it ought to be translated for the edification of all married ladies. See Gale's Opuscul. Myth. Phys. p. 741.
6 Pythagoras was remarkable for fine hair, and Dr. Thiers (in his Histoire des Perruques) seems to take for granted it was all his own, as he has not mentioned him among those ancients who were obliged to have recourse to the 'coma apposititia.'-L'Hist. des Perruques, chap. 1.
But think, my Theon, how this soul was thrilled,
When near a fount, which o'er the vale distilled,
My fancy's eye beheld a form recline,
Of lunar race, but so resembling thine,
That, oh!-'twas but fidelity in me,
To fly, to clasp, and worship it for thee!
No aid of words the unbodied soul requires
To waft a wish, or embassy desires ;
But, by a throb to spirits only given,
By a mute impulse, only felt in heaven,
Swifter than meteor shaft through summer skies,
From soul to soul the glanced idea flies!
We met-like thee the youthful vision smiled;
But not like thee, when passionately wild,
Thou wak'st the slumbering blushes of my cheek,
By looking things thyself would blush to speak!
No; 'twas the tender, intellectual smile,
Flushed with the past, and yet serene the while,
Of that delicious hour when, glowing yet,
Thou yield'st to nature with a fond regret,
And thy soul, waking from its wildered dream,
Lights in thine eye a mellower, chaster beam!
Oh, my beloved! how divinely sweet
Is the pure joy, when kindred spirits meet!
The Elean god,' whose faithful waters flow,
With love their only light, through caves below,
Wafting in triumph all the flowery braids,
And festal rings, with which Olympic maids
Have decked his billow, as an offering meet
pour at Arethusa's crystal feet!
Think, when he mingles with his fountain-bride,
What perfect rapture thrills the blended tide!
Each melts in each, till one pervading kiss
Confound their currents in a sea of bliss!
'Twas thus-
But, Theon, 'tis a weary theme,
And thou delight'st not in my lingering dream.
Oh! that our lips were, at this moment, near,
And I would kiss thee into patience, dear!
And make thee smile at all the magic tales
Of star-light bowers and planetary vales,
Which my fond soul, inspired by thee and love,
In slumber's loom hath exquisitely wove.
But no; no more-soon as to-morrow's ray
O'er soft Ilissus shall dissolve away,
1 The river Alpheus, which flowed by Pisa or Olympia, and into which it was customary to throw offerings of different kinds during the celebration of the Olympic games. In the pretty
romance of Clitophon and Leucippe, the river is supposed to carry these offerings as bridal gifts to the fountain Arethusa.
I'll fly, my Theon, to thy burning breast,
And there in murmurs tell thee all the rest:
Then, if too weak, too cold the vision seems,
Thy lip shall teach me something more than dreams !
WRITTEN ABOARD THE BOSTON FRIGATE, 28TH APRIL.1
WHEN freshly blows the northern gale,
And under courses snug we fly;
When lighter breezes swell the sail,
And royals proudly sweep the sky,
'Longside the wheel, unwearied still
I stand, and as my watchful eye
Doth mark the needle's faithful thrill,
I think of her I love, and cry,
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