THE VISIT OF THE GODS.' ..

Imitated from Schiller.

NEVER, believe me,
Appear the Immortals,

Never alone :
Scarce had I welcom’d the Sorrow-beguiler,
Iacchus! but in came Boy Cupid, the Smiler ;

Lo! Phoebus, the Glorious, descends from his Throne! | They advance, they float in, the Olympians all !

With Divinities fills my

Terrestrial Hall !

How shall I yield you
Due entertainment,

Celestial Quire ?
Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoyance
Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance,
That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre !
Hah! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my Soul!

O give me the Nectar!

O fill me the Bowl !

Give him the Nectar !
Pour out for the Poet !

Hebe! pour free!
Quicken his eyes with celestial dew,
That Styx the destested no more he may view,
And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be!
Thanks, Hebe! I quaff it! Io Pæan, I cry!

The Wine of the Immortals

Forbids me to die !

All hail ! thou noble Land,

Our Fathers' native soil !
O stretch thy mighty hand,

Gigantic grown by toil,
O'er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore :

For thou with magic might
Canst reach to where the light
Of Phæbus travels bright

The world o'er!

The Genius of our clime,

From his pine-embattled steep,
Shall hail the guest sublime ;

While the Tritons of the deep

With their conchs the kindred league shall proclaim.

Then let the world combine
O'er the main our Naval Line
Like the milky way shall shine

Bright in fame!

T'hough ages long have past

Since our Fathers left their home,
Their pilot in the blast,

O’er untravell’d seas to roam,
Yet lives the blood of England in our veins !

And shall we not proclaim
That blood of honest fame
Which no tyranny can tame

By its chains ?

While the language free and bold

Which the Bard of Avon sung,
In which our Milton told

How the vault of Heaven rung
When Satan, blasted, fell with his host;

While this, with rev'rence meet,
Ten thousand echoes greet,
From rock to rock repeat

Round our coast;

While the manners, while the arts,

That mould a nation's soul,
Still cling around our hearts-

Between let ocean roll,
Our joint communion breaking with the Sun :

Yet still from either beach
The voice of blood shall reach,
More audible than speech,

- We are One.'*