"It is the Aphrodisian grove.
Anthemion's home is near. He sees
The light smoke rising from the trees
That shade the dwelling of his love.
Sad bodings, shadowy fears of ill,
Pressed heavier on him, in wild strife
With many-wandering hope, that still
Leaves on the darkest clouds of life
Some vestige of her radiant way:
But soon those torturing struggles end;
For where the poplar silver-gray
And dark associate cedar blend
Their hospitable shade, before

One human dwelling's well-known door,
Old Pheidon sits, and by his side
His only child, his age's pride,
Herself, Anthemion's destined bride.
She hears his coming tread. She flies
To meet him. Health is on her cheeks,
And pleasure sparkles in her eyes,
And their soft light a welcome speaks
More eloquent than words. Oh, joy!
The maid he left so fast consuming,
Whom death, impatient to destroy,
Had marked his prey, now rosy-blooming,
And beaming like the morning star
With loveliness and love, has flown
To welcome him: his cares fly far,
Like clouds when storms are overblown;
For where such perfect transports reign
Even memory has no place for pain.

The poet's task were passing sweet,
If, when he tells how lovers meet,
One half the flow of joy, that flings
Its magic on that blissful hour,
Could touch, with sympathetic power,
His lyre's accordant strings.
It may not be. The lyre is mute,
When venturous minstrelsy would suit
Its numbers to so dear a theme:
But many a gentle maid, I deem,
Whose heart has known and felt the like,
Can hear, in fancy's kindred dream,
The chords I dare not strike.

They spread a banquet in the shade
Of those old trees. The friendly board
Callirõe's beauteous hands arrayed,
With self-requiting toil, and poured
In fair-carved bowl the sparkling wine
In order due Anthemion made
Libation, to Olympian Jove,
Arcadian Pan, and Thespian Love,
And Bacchus, giver of the vine.
The generous draught dispelled the sense
Of weariness. His limbs were light:

His heart was free: Love banished thence
All forms but one most dear, most bright:
And ever with insatiate sight

He gazed upon the maid, and listened,
Absorbed in ever new delight,

To that dear voice whose balmy sighing
To his full joy blest response gave,
Like music doubly-sweet replying
From twilight echo's sylvan cave;
And her mild eyes with soft rays glistened,
Imparting and reflecting pleasure;
For this is Love's terrestrial treasure,
That in participation lives,
And evermore, the more it gives,
Itself abounds in fuller measure.

Pheidon informs his destined son-in-law of the sudden and miraculous recovery of his daughter during the absence of

Anthemion, and the day passes on in the interchange of vows and tokens of devoted and rapturous affection. In the evening and alone-the lovers give way to the feelings so natural after long separation;

"Her bright eyes ne'er had seemed so bright,
Her sweet voice ne'er had seemed so sweet,
As then they seemed. Upon his neck
Her head was resting, and her eyes
Were raised to his. for no disguise
Her feelings knew; untaught to check,
As in these days more worldly wise,
The heart's best, purest sympathies.

Fond youth! her lips are near to thine:
The ringlets of her temples twine
Against thy check: Oh! more or less
Than mortal wert thou not to press
Those ruby lips! Or does it dwell
Upon thy mind, that fervid spell
Which Rhododaphne breathed upon
Thy lips erewhile in Helicon ?
Ah! pause, rash boy! bethink thee yet;
And canst thou then the charm forget?
Or dost thou scorn its import vain
As vision of a fevered brain?

Oh! he has kissed Callirõe's lips!
And with the touch the maid grew pale,
And sudden change of strange eclipse
Drew o'er her eyes its dusky veil.
As droops the meadow-pink its head,
By the rude seythe in summer's prime
Cleft from its parent stem, and spread
On earth to wither ere its time:
Even so the flower of Ladon faded,
Swifter than when the sun hath shaded
In the young storm his setting ray,
The western radiance dies away.

He pressed her heart: no pulse was there.
Before her lips his hand he placed:
No breath was in them. Wild despair
Came on him, as, with sudden waste,
When snows dissolve in vernal rain,
The mountain-torrent on the plain
Descends; and with that fearful swell
Of passionate grief, the midnight spell
Of the Thessalian maid recurred,
Distinct in every fatal word;

These lips are mine; the spells have won
them,

Which round and round thy soul I twine;
And be the kiss I print upon then
Poison to all lips but mine!

Anthemion is seized with mad, ungevernable grief at the disastrous and fatal termination of all his hopes; and unable to bear the sight of the heart-stricken father, or the contemplation of his deceased but still beautiful and beloved Callirür. he rushes distractedly from the re of ot Pheiion, and wanders in will deguir through the country. At length bis unconscious steps lead him to the mountain solitudes of Pelion. He throws himselfi on the shore, and resigns himself to sad

reflection on the cruel destiny that pursues him.

"Soothed by the multitudinous roar
Of ocean, and the ceaseless shock
Of spray, high-scattering from the rock
In the wail of the many-wandering wind.
A crew, on lawless venture bound,
Such men as roam the seas around,
Hearts to fear and pity strangers,
Seeking gold through crimes and dangers,
Sailing near; the wanderer spied.
Sudden, through the foaming tide,
They drove to land, and on the shore
Springing, they seized the youth, and bore
To their black ship, and spread again
Their sails, and ploughed the billowy main."

The pirates continue their course till the close of day, and anchor for the night in the bay of Therma. Here they land, and plunder the neighbouring country. In the morning they return with their spoil, and a young female captive, the sound of whose voice and lyre had betrayed her into the hands of the ruffians. They place her by the side of Anthemion, and command her to sing. The youth, for a moment forgetful of his own sorrows, turns his eyes in pity on the maiden. "Can it be? Or does his sense play false? Too well He knows that radiant form. 'Tis site, The magic maid of Thessaly. Tis Rhododaphne! By the spell, That ever round him dwelt, opprest, He bowed his head upon his breast, And o'er his eyes his hand he drew, That fatal beauty's sight to shun. Now from the orient heaven the sun

Had clothed the eastward waves with fire:
Right from the west the fair breeze blew:
The full sails swelled, and sparkling through
The sounding sea the vessel few:
With wine and copious cheer the crew
Caroused: the damsel o'er the lyre
Her rapid fingers lightly flung,
And thus, with feigned obedience, sung.

The Nereid's home is calm and bright,

The ocean-depths below,

Where liquid streams of emerald light
Through caves of coral flow.

She has a lyre of silver strings

Framed on a pearly shell,

And sweetly to that lyre she sings
The shipwrecked seaman's knell.

The ocean-snake in sleep she binds;
The dolphins round her play:
His purple conch the Triton winds
Responsive to the lay:

Proteus and Phoreys, sea-gods old,
Watch by her coral cell,

To hear, on watery echoes rolled,
The shipwrecked seaman's knell.""

The captain commands her to sing some gayer melody, some legend of "im

perial Jove”—or Mercury—or Bacchus, the giver of joy.

"He said, and drained the bowl. The crew
With long coarse laugh applauded. Fast
With sparkling keel the vessel flew,
For there was magic in the breeze
That urged her through the sounding seas.
By Chanastraum's point they past,
And Ampelos. Gray Athos, vast,
With woods far-stretching to the sea,
Was full before them, while the maid
Again her lyre's wild strings assayed,
In notes of bolder melody:

-Bacchus by the lonely ocean
Stood in youthful semblance fair:
Summer winds, with gentle motion,
Waved his black and curling hair.
Streaming from his manly shoulders
Robes of gold and purple dye
Told of spoil to fierce beholders
In their black ships sailing by.
On the vessel's deck they placed him
Strongly bound in triple bands;
But the iron rings that braced him
Then the pilot spake in terror:
Melted, wax-like, from his hands.

-Tis a god in mortal form!
Seek the land; repair your error
Ere his wrath invoke the storm.'-
--Silence! cried the frowning master,--
Mind the helm: the breeze is fair:

Coward! cease to bode disaster:
Leave to men the captive's care.'-
While he speaks and fiercely tightens
In the full free breeze the sail,
From the deck wine bubbling lightens.
Winy fragrance fills the gale.
Gurgling in ambrosial lustre
Flows the purple-eddyig wine:
O'er the yard-arms trail and cluster
Tendrils of the mantling vine:

Grapes, beneath the broad leaves springing.
Blushing as in vintage-hours,

Droop, while round the tall mast clinging
Ivy twines its buds and flowers,

Fast with graceful berries blackening:-
Garlands hang on every oar:
Then in fear the cordage slackening,
One and all they cry,- To shore!'-
Bacchus changed his shape, and glaring
With a lion's eyeballs wide,

Roared: the pirate crew, despairing,
Plunged amid the foaming tide.
Through the azure depths they flitted
Dolphins by transforming fate:
But the god the pilot pitied,

Saved, and made him rich and great.'"

The captain and his crew are scarcely more pleased with this strain than the fortner. As they pass Nymphæum, they listen with dread to the mournful sighing of the breeze among the woods,

"Curse on thy songs!-the leader cried,-False tales of evil augury!"

"She rose, and loosed her radiant hair,
And raised her golden lyre in air.
The lyre, beneath the breeze's wings,
As if a spirit swept the strings,
Breathed airy music, sweet and strange,
In many a wild fantastic change,
Most like a daughter of the Sun
She stood: her eyes all radiant shone
With beams unutterably bright;
And her long tresses, loose and light,
As on the playful breeze they rolled,
Flamed with rays of burning gold.
His wondering eyes Anthemion raised
Upon the maid: the seamen gazed
In fear and strange suspense, amazed.
From the forest-depths profound
Breathes a low and sullen sound:
'Tis the woodland spirit's sigh,
Ever heard when storms are nigh.
On the shore the turf that breaks
With the rising breezes makes
More tumultuous harmony.
Louder yet the breezes sing;
Round and round, in dizzy ring,
Sea-birds scream on restless wing:
Pine and cedar creak and swing
To the sea-blast's murmuring.
Far and wide on sand and shingle
Eddying breakers boil and mingle:
Beetling cliff and caverned rock
Roll around the echoing shock,
Where the spray, like snow-dust whirled,
High in vapoury wreaths is hurled.

Clouds on clouds, in volumes driven,
Curtain round the vault of heaven.
-To shore! to shore!'-the seamen cry.
The damsel waved her lyre on high,
And to the powers that ruled the sea
It whispered notes of witchery.
Swifter than the lightning-flame

The sudden breath of the whirlwind came.
Round at once in its mighty sweep

The vessel whirled on the whirling deep.
Right from shore the driving gale
Bends the mast and swells the sail:
Loud the foaming ocean raves:
Through the mighty waste of waves
Speeds the vessel swift and free,
Like a meteor of the sea."

This may be pronounced one of the finest passages in the poem. The blazing beauty, and magic graces of the young enchantress shining through the storm, are pourtrayed with singular felicity while the storm itself is described with a vigour and animation not often excelled by any contemporary poet.

The sailors gaze with mingled terror and admiration on the fair magician, nor with less wonder does Anthemion

"Look upon her radiant form
Shining by the golden beams
Of her refulgent hair, that streams
Like waving star-light on the storm;
And hears the vocal blast that rings
Among her lyre's enchanted strings."
The tempest increases, and the vessel
drives on at the mercy of wind and wave;

"Tow'rds the rocks, through surf and surge,
The destined ship the wild winds urge.
High on one gigantic wave

She swings in air. From rock and cave
A long loud wail of fate and fear
Rings in the hopeless seamen's ear.
Forward, with the breaker's dash,
She plunges on the rock. The crash
Of the dividing bark, the roar
Of waters bursting on the deck,
Are in Anthemion's ear: no more
He bears or sees: but round his neck
Are closely twined the silken rings
Of Rhododaphne's glittering hair,

And round him her bright arms she flings,
And cinctured thus in loveliest bands
The charmed waves in safety bear
The youth and the enchantress fair,
And leave them on the golden sands."

Recovering from his trance, Anthemion finds himself on the coast of Thrace, with Rhododaphne by his side;

"Her hands

Still held the golden lyre: her hair
In all its long luxuriance hung
Unringleted, and glittering bright
With briny drops of diamond light:
Her thin wet garments lightly clung
Around her forms rare symmetry.
Like Venus risen from the sea

She seemed: so beautiful: and who
With mortal sight such form could view,
And deem that evil lurked beneath?
Who could approach those starry eyes,
Those dewy coral lips, that breathe
Ambrosial fragrance, and that smile
In which all Love's Elysium lies,
Who this could see, and dream of guile,
And brood on wrong and wrath the while?
If there be one, who ne'er has felt
Resolve, and doubt, and anger melt,
Like vernal night-frosts, in one beam
Of Beauty's sun, 'twere vain to deem,
Between the Muse and him could be
A link of human sympathy."

A conversation between Anthemion and Rhododaphne ensues, in which all the endeavours of the latter to win the love of Calliröe's lover, prove vain. We extract his declaration of the strength and lastingness of his passion for that lovely and unfortunate maiden. To her avowal, "I love thee and I seek thy love," he replies,

"My love! It sleeps in dust for ever
Within my lost Callirõe's tomb:
The smiles of living beauty never
May my soul's darkness re-illume.
We grew together, like twin flowers,
Whose opening buds the same dews cherish:
And one is reft, ere noon-tide hours,
Violently; one remains, to perish
By slow decay; as I remain
Even now, to move and breathe in vain.
The late, false love, that worldlings learn,
When hearts are hard, and thoughts are stern,

And feelings dull, and Custom's rule
Omnipotent, that love may cool,
And waste, and change: but this-which flings
Round the young soul its tendril rings,
Strengthening their growth and grasp with

years,

Till habits, pleasures, hopes, smiles, tears,
All modes of thinking, feeling, seeing,
Of two congenial spirits, blend

In one inseparable being,

Deem'st thou this love can change or end?
There is no eddy on the stream,

No bough that light winds bend and toss,
No checquering of the sunny beam
Upon the woodland moss,

No star in evening's sky, no flower
Whose beauty odorous breezes stir,
No sweet bird singing in the bower,
Nay, not the rustling of a leaf,
That does not nurse and feed my grief
By wakening thoughts of her.
All lovely things a place possessed
Of love in my Callirõe's breast:
And from her purer, gentler spirit,
Did mine the love and joy inherit,
Which that blest maid around her threw.
With all I saw, and felt, and knew,
The image of Callirõe grew,
Till all the beauty of the earth
Seemed as to her it owed its birth,
And did but many forms express
Of her reflected loveliness.

The sunshine and the air seemed less
The sources of my life: and how
Was she torn from me? Earth is now
A waste, where many echoes tell
Only of her I loved-how well

Words have no power to speak :-and thou-
Gather the rose-leaves from the plain
Where faded and defiled they lie,
And close them in their bud again,
And bid them to the morning sky
Spread lovely as at first they were:
Or from the oak the ivy tear,
And wreathe it round another tree
In vital growth: then turn to me,
And bid my spirit cling on thee,
As on my lost Calliröe!'"

She takes him by the hand, and leading him to a lonely and deserted dwelling in the forest, suddenly' quits him, and enters the ruined hut. Anthemion wanders through the woods, ignorant of their mazes, and oppressed with fatigue and hunger; evening finds him in the spot where Rhododaphne had left

him;

but now to him unknown Was all the scene. Mid gardens, fair With trees and flowers of fragrance rare, A rich and ample pile was there, Glittering with myriad lights, that shone Far-streaming through the dusky air. With hunger, toil, and weariness, Outworn, he cannot choose but pass Tow'rds that fair pile. With gentle stress He strikes the gate of polished brass. Loud and long the portal rings, As back with swift recoil it swings,

Disclosing wide a vaulted hail,
With many columns bright and tall
Encircled. Throned in order round,
Statues of dæmons and of kings
Between the marble columns frowned
With seeming life: each throne beside,
Two humbler statues stood, and raised
Each one a silver lamp, that wide
With many-mingling radiance blazed.

High reared on one surpassing throne, A brazen image sate alone,

A dwarfish shape, of wrinkled brow,
With sceptered hand and crowned head.
No sooner did Anthemion's tread
The echoes of the hall awake,
Than up that image rose, and spake,
As from a trumpet: What would'st thou?"

Anthemion replies that he is worn with toil and hunger, and implores hospitality till morning. The dwarf welcomes him, and he enters the enchanted mansion.

"Spontaneously, an inner door
Unclosed. Anthemion from the hall.
Passed to a room of state, that wore
Aspect of destined festival.
Of fragrant cedar was the floor,
And round the light pilastered wall,
Curtains of crimson and of gold
Hung down in many a gorgeous fold.
Bright lamps, through that apartment gay
Adorned like Cytherea's bowers
With vases filled with odorous flowers,
Diffused an artificial day.

A banquet's sumptuous order there,
In long array of viands rare,

Fruits, and ambrosial wine, was spread.
A golden boy, in semblance fair
Of actual life, came forth, and led
Anthemion to a couch, beside
That festal table, canopied
With cloth by subtlest Tyrian dyed,
And ministered the feast: the while,
Invisible harps symphonious wreathed
Wild webs of soul-dissolving sound,
And voices, alternating round,
Songs, as of choral maidens, breathed."

Overpowered by the luxury of the scene, the youth resigns himself to the pleasures of the banquet. The golden boy fills up a crystal goblet with sparkling wine.

"Anthemion took the cup, and quaffed,
With reckless thirst, the enchanted draught.
That instant came a voice divine,

A maiden voice: Now art thou mine!'
The golden boy is gone. The song
And the symphonious harps no more
Their Siren minstrelsy prolong.
One eritason curtain waves before
His sight, and opens. From its screen,
The nymph of more than earthly inien,
The magic maid of Thessaly,

Came forth, her tresses loosely streaming.
Her eyes with dewy radiance beaming,
Her form all grace and symmetry,
In silken vesture light and free
As if the woof were air, she came,
And took his hand, and called his name

Now art thou mine!'-again she cried,—
'My love's indissoluble chain
Has found thee in that goblet's tide,
And thou shalt wear my flower again.'-
She said, and in Anthemion's breast
She placed the laurel-rose: her arms
She twined around him and imprest
Her lips on his, and fixed on him
Fond looks of passionate love: her charms
With tenfold radiance on his sense
Shone through the studied negligence
Of her light vesture. His eyes swim
With dizziness. The lamps grow dim,
And tremble, and expire. No more.
Darkness is there, and Mystery:
And Silence keeps the golden key
Of Beauty's bridal door."

Here Anthemion dwells for some time in the bosom of love and pleasure, adored by beauty, and surrounded with every thing that can soothe and fascinate the senses. The enchantress incessantly varies the delights of her palace, and employs her sweetest arts to wean the mind of her captive from the remembrance of Calliröe, but in vain ;

"Callirõe ever

Pursued him like a bleeding shade,
Nor all the magic nymph's endeavour
Could from his constant memory sever
The image of that dearer maid.”

Of this part of the poem we can only afford to give a single specimen. After relating the more turbulent pleasures with which this scene of enchantment abounded, the poet proceeds,

"Among those garden bowers they stray,
Dispersed, where fragrant branches blending
Exclude the sun's meridian ray,
Or on some thymy bank repose,
By which a tinkling rivulet flows,
Where birds, on each o'ershadowing spray,
Make music through the live-long day.
The while in one sequestered cave,
Where roses round the entrance wave,
And jasmine sweet and clustering vine
With flowers and grapes the arch o'ertwine,
Anthemion and the nymph recline,
While in the sunny space, before
The cave, a fountain's lucid store
Its crystal column shoots on high,
And bursts, like showery diamonds flashing,
So falls, and with melodious dashing
Shakes the small pool. A youth stands by,
A tuneful rhapsodist, and sings,
Accordant to his changeful strings,
High strains of ancient poesy.
And oft her golden lyre she takes,
And such transcendant strains awakes,
Such floods of melody, as steep
Anthemion's sense in bondage deep
Of passionate admiration: still
Combining with intenser skill

The charm that holds him now, whose bands
May ne'er be loosed by mortal hands.

And oft they rouse with clamorous chase
The forest, urging wide and far
Through glades and dells the sylvan war.
Satyrs and Fauns would start around,
And through their ferny dingles bound,
To see that nymph, all life and grace
And radiance, like the huntress queen,
With sandaled feet and vest of green,
In her soft fingers grasp the spear,
Hang on the track of flying deer,
Shout to the dogs as fast they sweep
Tumultuous down the woodland steep,
And hurl, along the tainted air,
The javelin from her streaming hair."

Time flies on, in a succession of joys, when returning one evening from the chase, Anthemion and the Enchantress are surprised by the solitary and deserted aspect of her magnificent palace.

"They looked around them. Where
Are all those youths and maidens fair,
Who followed them but now? On high
She waves her lyre. Its murmurs die
Tremulous. They come not whom she calls.
Why starts she? Wherefore does she throw
Around the youth her arms of snow,
With passion so intense, and weep?
What mean those murmurs, sad and low,
That like sepulchral echoes creep
Along the marble walls?

Her breath is short and quick; and, dire
With tears, her eyes are fixed on him:
Her lips are quivering and apart:
Her face is pale. He cannot shun
He feels the fluttering of her heart:
Her fear's contagion. Tenderly
And said: What ails thee, lovely one ?'''
He kissed her lips in sympathy,

In faltering accents she bids him say what he beholds in the hall. He answers, "the statues, and the lamps that burn: no more."-She bids him look again, and asks him whether he does not observe a strange image on the throne lately occupied by the brazen dwarf?

"Even as she bade he looked again:
From his high throne the dwarf was gone.
Lo! there, as in the Thespian fane,
Uranian Love! His bow was bent:
The arrow to its head was drawn,
His frowning brow was fixed intent
On Rhododaphne. Scarce did rest
Upon that form Anthemion's view,
When, sounding shrill, the arrow flew,
And lodged in Rhododaphne's breast.
It was not Love's own shaft, the giver
Of life and joy and tender flame;
But, borrowed from Apollo's quiver,
The death-directed a row canie.

Long, slow, distinct in each stern word,
A sweet deep-thrilling voice was heard:

With impious spells hast thou profaned
My altars; and all ruling Jove,
Though late, yet certain, has unchained
The vengeance of Uranian Love!"