And while my youthful peers, before my eyes, (Each Hero following his peculiar bent) Prepared themselves for glorious enterprize By martial sports, -or, seated in the tent, Chieftains and kings in council were detained; The wished-for wind was given :-I then revolved And, if no worthier led the way, resolved That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be Yet bitter, oft-times bitter, was the pang And on the joys we shared in mortal life, - But should suspense permit the Foe to cry, Yet of their number no one dares to die?". In soul I swept the indignity away : Old frailties then recurred: - but lofty thought, In act embodied, my deliverance wrought. And thou, though strong in love, art all too weak I counsel thee by fortitude to seek Our blest re-union in the shades below. The invisible world with thee hath sympathized; Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes re-appears! Swift, tow'rd the realms that know not earthly day, By no weak pity might the Gods be moved; : Yet tears to human suffering are due; From out the tomb of him for whom she died; * For the account of these long-lived trees, see Pliny's Natural History, lib. 16. cap. 44.; and for the features in the character of Protesilaus (page 115.) see the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. Virgil places the Shade of Laodamia in a mournful region, among unhappy Lovers, His Laodamia It comes. XXVI. HER eyes are wild, her head is bare, The sun has burnt her coal-black hair; Her eyebrows have a rusty stain, And she came far from over the main. She has a Baby on her arm, Or else she were alone; And underneath the hay-stack warm, And on the green-wood stone, She talked and the woods among, sung And it was in the English tongue. "Sweet Babe! they say that I am mad, But nay, my heart is far toò glad; And I am happy when I sing Full many a sad and doleful thing: I pray thee have no fear of me, But, safe as in a cradle, here, To thee I know too much I owe; A fire was once within my brain ; |