Resume, and hail Artuchus.

From their swarms A force he culls. Thermopylæ he seeks. Fell shouts in horrid dissonance precede. His phalanx swift Leonidas commands To circle backward from the Malian bay. Their order changes. Now, half-orb'd, they stand By Eta's fence protected from behind, With either flank united to the rock. As by the excelling architect dispos'd, To shield some haven, a stupendous mole, Fram'd of the grove and quarry's mingled strength, In ocean's bosom penetrates afar: There, pride of art, immoveable it looks On Eolus and Neptune; there defies Those potent gods combin'd: unyielding thus, The Grecians stood a solid mass of war Against Artuchus, join'd with numbers new To Hyperanthes. In the foremost rank Leonidas his dreadful station held. Around him soon a spacious void was seen By flight, or slaughter in the Persian van. In gen'rous shame and wrath Artuchus burns, Discharging full at Lacedæmon's chief An iron-studded mace. It glanc'd aside, Turn'd by the massy buckler. Prone to earth The satrap fell. Alcander aim'd his point, Which had transfix'd him prostrate on the rock, But for th' immediate succour he obtain'd From faithful soldiers, lifting on their shields A chief belov'd. Not such Alcander's lot.

An arrow wounds his heart. Supine he lies,
The only Theban, who to Greece preserv'd
Unviolated faith. Physician sage,
On pure Citharon healing herbs to cull
Was he accustom'd, to expatiate o'er
The Heliconian pastures, where no plants
Of poison spring, of juice salubrious all,
Which vipers, winding in their verdant track,
Drink and expel the venom from their tooth,
Dipt in the sweetness of that soil divine.
On him the brave Artontes sinks in death,
Renown'd through wide Bithynia, ne'er again
The clam'rous rites of Cybelè to share ;
While Echo murmurs through the hollow caves
Of Berecynthian Dindymus. The strength
Of Alpheus sent him to the shades of night.
Ere from the dead was disengag'd the spear,
Huge Abradates, glorying in his might,
Surpassing all of Cissian race, advanc'd
To grapple; planting firm his foremost step,
The victor's throat he grasp'd. At Nemea's games
The wrestler's chaplet Alpheus had obtain❜d.
He summons all his art. Oblique the stroke
Of his swift foot supplants the Persian's heel.
He, falling, clings by Alpheus' neck, and drags
His foe upon him. In the Spartan's back
Enrag'd barbarians fix their thronging spears.
To Abradates' chest the weapons pass;
They rivet both in death. This Maron sees,
This Polydorus, frowning. Victims, strewn
Before their vengeance, hide their brother's corse.
At length the gen'rous blood of Maron warms
The sword of Hyperanthes. On the spear
Of Polydorus falls the pond'rous ax

Of Sacian Mardus. From the yielding wood
The steely point is sever'd. Undismay'd,
The Spartan stoops to rear the knotted mace,
Left by Artuchus; but thy fatal blade,
Abrocomes, that dreadful instant watch'd
To rend his op'ning side. Unconquer'd still

Swift he discharges on the Sacian's front

A pond'rous blow, which burst the scatter'd brain.
Down his own limbs meantime a torrent flows
Of vital crimson. Smiling, he reflects
On sorrow finish'd, on his Spartan name,
Renew'd in lustre. Sudden to his side
Springs Dithyrambus. Through th' uplifted arm
Of Mindus, pointing a malignant dart
Against the dying Spartan, he impell'd
His spear. The point with violence unspent,
Urg'd by such vigour, reach'd the Persian's throat
Above his corselet. Polydorus stretch'd
His languid hand to Thespia's friendly youth,
Then bow'd his head in everlasting peace.
While Mindus, wasted by his streaming wound,
Beside him faints and dies. In flow'ring prime
He, lord of Colchis, from a bride was toru
His tyrant's hasty mandate to obey.
She tow'rd the Euxin sends her plaintive sighs;
She woos in tender piety the winds:
Vain is their favour; they can never breathe
On his returning sail. At once a crowd

Of eager Persians seize the victor's spear.
One of his nervous hands retains it fast.
The other bares his falchion. Wounds and death
He scatters round. Sosarmes feels his arm
Lopt from the shoulder. Zatis leaves entwin'd
His fingers round the long-disputed lance.
On Mardon's reins descends the pond'rous blade,
Which half divides his body. Pheron strides
Across the pointed ash. His weight o'ercomes
The weary'd Thespian, who resigns his hold;
But cleaves th' elate barbarian to the brain.
Abrocomes darts forward, shakes his steel,
Whose lightning threatens death. The wary Greek
Wards with his sword the well-directed stroke,
Then, closing, throws the Persian. Now what aid
Of imortal force, or interposing Heav'n,
Preserves the eastern hero? Lo! the friend
Of Teribazus. Eager to avenge

That lov'd, that lost companion, and defend
A brother's life, beneath the sinewy arm,
Outstretch'd, the sword of Hyperanthes pass'd
Through Dithyrambus. All the strings of life
At once relax; nor fame, nor Greece demand
More from his valour. Prostrate now he lies
In glories, ripen'd on his blooming head.
Him shall the Thespian maidens in their songs
Record once loveliest of the youthful train,
The gentle, wise, beneficent, and brave,
Grace of his lineage, and his country's boast,
Now fall'n. Elysium to his parting soul
Uncloses. So the cedar, which supreme
Among the groves of Libanus hath tow'r'd,
Uprooted, low'rs his graceful top, preferr'd
For dignity of growth some royal dome,
Or Heav'n-devoted fabric to adorn.
Diomedon bursts forward. Round his friend
He heaps destruction. Troops of wailing ghosts
Attend thy shade, fall'n hero! Long prevail'd
His furious arm in vengeance uncontroll'd;
Till four Assyrians on his shelving spear,
Ere from a Cissian's prostrate body freed,
Their poud'rous maces all discharge. It broke.
Still with a shatter'd truncheon he maintains
Unequal fight. Impetuous through his eye
The well-aim'd fragment penetrates the brain
Of one bold warrior; there the splinter'd wood,
Infix'd, remains. The hero last unsheaths
His falchion broad. A second sees aghast

Lies useless, irrecoverably plung'd In Jaxartes' body. Low reclines Dieneces. Leonidas himself,

O'erlabour'd, wounded, with his dinted sword
The rage of war can exercise no more.
One last, one glorious effort age performs.
Demophilus, Megistias join their might.

They check the tide of conquest; while the spear
Of slain Dieneces to Sparta's chief
The fainting Agis bears. The pointed ash,
In that dire hand for battle rear'd anew,
Blasts ev'ry Persian's valour. Back in heaps
They roll, confounded, by their gen'ral's voice
In vain exhorted longer to endure

The ceaseless waste of that unconquer'd arm.
So, when the giants from Olympus chas'd
Th' inferior gods, themselves in terrour shun'd
Th' incessant streams of lightning, where the hand
Of Heav'n's great father with eternal might
Sustain'd the dreadful conflict. O'er the field
Awhile Bellona gives the battle rest;
When Thespia's leader and Megistias drop
At either side of Lacedæmon's king.
Beneath the weight of years and labour bend
The hoary warriors. Not a groan molests
Their parting spirits; but in death's calm night
All-silent sinks each venerable head:
Like aged oaks, whose deep-descending roots
Had pierc'd resistless through a craggy slope;
There during three long centuries have brav'd
Malignant Eurus, and the boist'rous north;
Till bare and sapless by corroding time,
Without a blast their mossy trunks recline
Before their parent hill.
Not one remains,

But Agis, near Leonidas, whose hand
The last kind office to his friend performs,
Extracts the Sacian's arrow. Life, releas'd,
Pours forth in crimson floods. Agis, pale
Thy placid features, rigid are thy limbs;

They lose their graces. Dimm'd, thy eyes reveal
The native goodness of thy heart no more.
Yet other graces spring. The noble corse
Leonidas surveys. A pause he finds

To mark, how lovely are the patriot's wounds,
And see those honours on the breast he lov'd.

But Hyperanthes from the trembling ranks
Of Asia tow'rs, inflexibly resolv'd
The Persian glory to redeem, or fall.
The Spartan, worn by toil, his languid arm
Uplifts once more. He waits the dauntless prince.
The heroes now stand adverse. Each awhile
Restrains his valour. Each, admiring, views
His godlike foe. At length their brandish'd points
Provoke the contest, fated soon to close
The long-continu'd horrours of the day.
Fix'd in amaze and fear, the Asian throng,
Unmov'd and silent, on their bucklers pause.
Thus on the wastes of India, while the Earth
Beneath him groans, the elephant is seen,
His huge proboscis writhing, to defy
The strong rhinoceros, whose pond'rous horn
Is newly whetted on a rock. Anon

Each hideous bulk encounters.
Earth her groan
Redoubles. Trembling, from their covert gaze
The savage inmates of surrounding woods
In distant terrour. By the vary'd art
Of either chief the dubious combat long
Its great event retarded. Now his lance
Far through the hostile shield Laconia's king
Impell'd. Aside the Persian swung his arm.

Beneath it pass'd the weapon, which his targe
Encumber'd. Hopes of conquest and renown
Elate his courage. Sudden he directs
His rapid javelin to the Spartan's throat.
But he his wary buckler upward rais'd,
Which o'er his shoulder turn'd the glancing steel
For one last effort then his scatter'd strength
Collecting, levell'd with resistless force
The massive orb, and dash'd its brazen verge
Full on the Persian's forehead. Down he sunk,
Without a groan expiring, as o'erwhelm'd
Beneath a marble fragment, from its seat
Heav'd by a whirlwind, sweeping o'er the ridge
Of some aspiring mansion. Gen'rous prince!
What could his valour more? His single might
He match'd with great Leonidas, and fell
Before his native bands. The Spartan king
Now stands alone. In heaps his slaughter'd friends,
All stretch'd around him, lie. The distant foes
Show'r on his head innumerable darts.
From various sluices gush the vital floods;
They stain his fainting limbs. Nor yet with pain
His brow is clouded; but those beauteous wounds,
The sacred pledges of his own renown,
And Sparta's safety, in serenest joy
His closing eye contemplates. Fame can twine
No brighter laurels round his glorious head;
His virtue more to labour Fate forbids,
And lays him now in honourable rest
To seal his country's liberty by death.

THE ATHENAID.

A POEM.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Athenaid, written by the late Richard Glover, esq.; was left by him, among other literary works, to Miss Glover (now Mrs. Halsey) who presents it to the public exactly copied from her father's manuscript, except what regards the punctuation, and introduction of now and then a connective word, inserted by the good oflices of a friend. The poem was not finished early enough before Mr. Glover's decease for him to revise it, as he intended; yet, incorrect as it may be for want of such revisal, the editor flatters herself that it will be favourably received as the genuine work of an author, who was ever distinguished by public approbation. earnest desire of doing honour to the memory of a deceased parent, and also of gratifying the literary world with the sequel to Leonidas, which the present poem contains, and which together includes the most brilliant period of the Grecian history, are the motives for her publication.

BOOK I.

An

On his endanger'd country's future doom,
Repairs, invited by an evening still,
To clear Ilissus, Attic stream renown'd.
Beneath an oak, in solitary state
Apart, itself a wood, the hero's limbs

To closing day

On tufted moss repose. He grasps the lyre;
Unfolded scrolls voluminous he spreads
Along the ground: high lays repeating thence,
Leonidas the Spartan he extols,
And sweeps th' accordant strings.
He bade farewell, and hail'd th' ascending stars
In music long continued: till the stream
With drowsy murmur won his eye to sleep,
But left his fancy waking. In a dream
The god of day, with full meridian blaze,
Seem'd to assume his function o'er the skies;
When, lo! the Earth divided: through the cleft
A gush of radiance dimm'd the noon-tide Sun.
In structure all of diamond, self pois'd,
Amid redundant light a chariot hung
Triumphal. Twelve transparent horses breath'd
Beams from their nostrils, dancing beams of day
Shook from their manes. In lineaments of man,
Chang'd to immortal, there the mighty soul
Of Sparta's king apparent shone. His wounds
Shot forth a splendour like the clust'ring stars,
Which on Orion's chest and limbs proclaim
Hit first of constellations. Round in cars
Of triumph too arrang'd, the stately forms
Of those whom virtue led to share his doom,
And consecrate Thermopyla to fame.
Pines tipp'd with lightning seem'd their spears;
their shields

Broad like Minerva's ægis: from their helms
An empyreal brightness stream'd abroad:
Ineffable felicity their eyes,

Their fronts the majesty of gods display'd.
Erect the glorious shape began to speak
In accents louder than a bursting cloud-
Pentelicus, Hymettus seem'd to shake
Through all their quarries, and Ilissus beat
His shudd'ring banks in tumult-" Thou, whose
Muse

Commands th' immortalizing trump of Fame,
Go to the sage Hellanodics, the just
Elean judges of Olympian palms;
There in thy own celestial strains rehearse,
Before that concourse wide, our deeds and fate.
Let our example general Greece inspire
To face her danger; let the Spartan shield
Protect th' Athenians, else I died in vain."

The brilliant vision, now dispersing, leaves
The wond'ring bard. He, starting, in his ken
Discerns no other than the real scene
Of shadows brown from close embow'ring wood,
Than distant mountains, and the spangled face
Of Heav'n, reflected from the silver stream.
But pensive, brooding o'er his country's fate,
His step he turns. Themistocles, who rul'd
Athenian councils, instant he accosts
With large recital of his awful dream.
"Obey the mandate," cries the chief: " alarm
Th' Olympian concourse: from the Delphian port
Of Cirrha sail for Elis: on thy way
Consult Apollo in the state's behalf,
Which to that function nominates thy worth:
Of Xerxes' march intelligence obtain."

This said, they parted. Eschylus by dawn Commenc'd his progress, join'd by numbers arm'd, Like him to Pisa's barrier destin'd all, VOL. XVII

Renew'd his orbit, five successive nights
The Moon enlarg'd her crescent, ere they reach'd
Phoebean Delphi, seated on a rock

Abrupt, sublime. Yet thence the curious eye
Must upward look to meet the summits blue
Of double-topp'd Parnassus, where the god
Oracular is worshipp'd. Here they trac'd
Barbarian violence profane. Consum'd
Were hamlets, temples levell'd to the dust,
The statues broken, each religious bow'r
A burning mass of embers. Wrapt in smoke,
With cinders strewn, so glows the region round
Portentous Ætna, or Vesuvius dire,

Death's flaming cauldrons; when their stony ribs
And min'ral bowels, liquefied by fire,
O'erwhelm the fields, by Nature left unbless'd,
Alone unbless'd of all Sicania's bound,
Or lovely-fac'd Hesperia. Dubious here
Th' Athenians halt, while fierce the sultry noon
Inflames the sky. From Delphi's open gates,
To Attic eyes no stranger, Timon comes,
Sage priest of Phoebus, magistrate unsoil'd,
The public host of Athens, to the plain
Descending swift with followers who bear
His buckler, spear, and armour. On his head
Were ashes sprinkled: rent, his garb presag'd
Some black disaster. "What malignant dart
Of fortune wounds thee?" Eschylus aloud,
While by the hand Cecropia's host he press'd.
To him the Delphian: "From deserted roofs,
Depopulated streets, I come to hail

Thee, bound by hospitable ties my friend,
Thee, dear to Phoebus, by Minerva grac'd,
Thy country's goddess. Me thou often saw'st
A parent bless'd in Amarantha's bloom,
Yet ripe in virtue., Her, presenting pray'r
With votive flow'rs before Minerva's shrine,
This very hour barbarians have enthrall'd,
Borne in my sight precipitate away.
O wife lamented, gather'd in thy prime
By ruthless Pluto! in Elysian groves
How shall I meet thee, and the tidings bear
Of thy lost child, to servitude a prey,
To violation doom'd? Yet more: the rage
Of these invaders, who have spoil'd our fields,
Defac'd our temples, driv'n to shelt'ring caves,
To pathless cliffs, our populace dismay'd,
Is now ascending to insult the fane,
With sacrilegious violence to seize
Th' accumulated off'rings by the great
And good from age to age devoted there."

He scarce had finish'd, when the Earth beneath
Rock'd from her centre in convulsive throes;
From pole to pole th' ethereal concave groan'd:
Night from her cavern with gigantic steps
Bestrode the region, lifting high as Heav'n
Her broad, infernal palm, whose umbrage hides
The throne of light; while, glancing through the
Of her black mantle, overlaid with clouds, [rifts
Blue vapours trail'd their fires. The double head
Of tall Parnassus reeling, from the crag
Unloos'd two fragments; mountainous in bulk,
They roll to Delphi with a crashing sound,
Like thunder nigh, whose burst of ruin strikes
The shatter'd ear with horrour. Thus the bard
Unmov'd, while round him ev'ry face is pale:

"Not on our heads these menaces are thrown

By ireful Nature, and portentous Heav'n;
Th' unrighteous now, th' oppressor of mankind,

G