CXXVIII.

"There we will sit and sport upon one billow,
And sing our ocean ditties all the day,
And lie together on the same green pillow,
That curls above us with its dewy spray;

And ever in one presence live and dwell,
Like two twin pearls within the selfsame shell.

CXXIX.

One moment then, upon the dizzy verge
She stands;-with face upturn'd against the sky;
A moment more, upon the foamy surge
She gazes, with a calm despairing eye;
Feeling that awful pause of blood and breath

Which life endures when it confronts with death;—

CXXX.

Then from the giddy steep she madly springs,
Grasping her maiden robes, that vainly kept
Panting abroad, like unavailing wings,

To save her from her death.-The sea-maid wept,
And in a crystal cave her cross enshrin'd,
No meaner sepulchre should Hero find!

LYCUS, THE CENTAUR.

1827.

ΤΟ

J. H. REYNOLDS, ESQ.

MY DEAR REYNOLDS,

You will remember " 'Lycus."-It was written in the pleasant springtime of our friendship, and I am glad to maintain that association, by connecting your name with the Poem. It will gratify me to find that you regard it with the old partiality for the writings of each other, which prevailed in those days. For my own sake, I must regret that your pen goes now into far other records than those which used to delight me

Your true Friend and Brother,

T. HOOD.

LYCUS, THE CENTAUR.

FROM AN UNROLLED MANUSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS CURIUS.

THE ARGUMENT.

Lycus, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved by a Water Nymph, who, desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to the Sorceress. Circe gives her an incantation to pronounce, which should turn Lycus into a horse; but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to break off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur.

WHO hath ever been lured and bound by a spell
To wander, fore-doom'd, in that circle of hell
Where Witchery works with her will like a god,
Works more than the wonders of time at a nod,—
At a word,-at a touch,-at a flash of the eye,
But each form is a cheat, and each sound is a lie,
Things born of a wish-to endure for a thought,
Or last for long ages-to vanish to naught,
Or put on new semblance? O Jove, I had given
The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven,
And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or whether
They kept the world's birth-day and brighten❜d together!
For I lov'd them in terror and constantly dreaded

That the earth where I trod, and the cave where I bedded,
The face I might dote on, should live out the lease

Of the charm that created, and suddenly cease: