IV.

Now the white violet decks the mead,

The dew-besprent Narcissus blows, And on the verdant mountain's head The wildly scattered lily grows;

Each loveliest child of Summer throws Her fragrance to the sunny hour,

But Julia's opening lips disclose Divine Persuasion's fairer flower. Meadows, why do you smile in vain In robe of green and garlands gay? When Julia moves along the plain,

She wears a sweeter charm than they.

V.

Hush'd is the howl of wintry breezes wild;
The purple hour of youthful Spring has smiled:
A livelier verdure clothes the teeming earth;
Buds press to life, rejoicing in their birth;
The laughing meadows drink the dews of night,
And, fresh with opening roses, glad the sight;
In songs the joyous swains responsive vie ;
Wild music floats, and mountain-melody.

Adventurous seamen spread th' embosomed sail O'er waves light-heaving to the western gale; While village-youths their brows with ivy twine, And hail with song the promise of the vine.

In curious cells the bees digest their spoil, When vernal sunshine animates their toil, And little birds, in warblings sweet and clear, Salute thee, Maia, loveliest of the year: Thee, on their deeps, the tuneful halcyons hail, In streams the swan, in woods the nightingale. If earth rejoices, with new verdure gay, And shepherds pipe, and flocks exulting play, And sailors roam, and Bacchus leads his throng, And bees to toil, and birds awake to song, Shall the glad bard be mute in tuneful Spring, And, warm with love and joy, forget to sing?

See Note 4.

FROM ARCHILOCHUS.

Oh Pericles! in vain the feast is spread:
To mirth and joy the afflicted state is dead.
The billows of the deep-resounding sea
Burst o'er our heads and drown our revelry:
Grief swells our veins with pangs unfelt before;
But Jove's high clemency reserves in store
All-suffering patience for his people's cure.
The best of healing balms is, To endure.
Heaven's vengeance will not always last-if we
Now weep in blood our nature's misery,
Soon shall the heavy scale of evil turn,
. And our full draught augment another's urn.
Oh suffer then the common trials sent,
And cast away your womanish lament.

See Note 5.

FROM SAPPHO.

TO AN ILLITERATE WOMAN.

Unknown, unheeded, shalt thou die,
And no memorial shall proclaim,
That once beneath the upper sky
Thou hadst a being and a name.

For never to the Muse's bowers
Didst thou with glowing heart repair,

Nor ever intertwine the flowers

That Fancy strews unnumber'd there.

Doom'd o'er that dreary realm, alone,

Shunned by the gentler shades, to go, Nor friend shall soothe, nor parent own The child of sloth, the Muse's foe..

See Nole 6.

FROM ERINNE.

I mark the spot where Julia's ashes lie:
Whoe'er thou art that passest silent by
This simple column, graced with many a tear,
Call the fierce monarch of the shades severe.
These mystic ornaments too plainly shew
The cruel fate of her who lies below:
With the same torch that Hymen gladly led
The expecting virgin to the nuptial bed,
Her weeping husband lit the funeral pyre,
And saw the dreary flames of Death aspire.
Thou too, oh Hymen, bad'st the jocund lay
That hailed thy festive season, die away,

Changed for the sighs of woe, and groans of deep

dismay.

See Notes 7, 8.