What artful folds the robe must take, The form more flexible to make, Till every pulse and limb may move, The sure provocatives to love; What magic scale connects the kiss And the last wild extreme of bliss. Yet tho' no statute may exist On such discovery to insist, Kind Chloe near her every snare Hangs out in capitals-BEWARE! For, by a thousand ways exprest, Her machinations stand confest; Whilst every object gives the alarm, To fly from the surrounding harm. Her hangings by the Graces wrought, With every warm voluptuous thought, Instruct the emblematic room, To antedate our certain doom. To fill her sofas all the loves From Cytherea's moulting doves, Have caught and treasur'd up the down, In softness something like her own; And see in all her toilet's round, What smallest implement is found, Without some ornamental hint, In speaking, varnish, or in print; Which seems not loudly to proclaim, That hearts are there the lawful game. A Cupid here, with guileful look, Bends a heart-angler o'er a brook; And tho' he practise various baits Success each stratagem awaits: Another, at his mother's lips, In fatal balm his quiver tips, Ꭱ Ꮞ Then with the sweetly-venom'd darts LINES Written between Caernarvon and Bangor, PLEAS'D have I travers'd that terrific vale, Fierce lightnings, warring winds, and dashing rains, Yet, Menai, do I not thy haunts despise, And here, fair stream, more glad would I abide, E. HAMLEY. HORACE. ODE XVI. B. 11. TO GROSPHUS. IMITATED BY THE LATE REV. W. B. STEVENS*. THE Seaman in some wild tempestuous night, When Horror rides upon the wide-mouth'd wave, And stars deny the mercy of their light, Longs for some peaceful port his shatter'd bark to save. The soldier struggling in unequal war, In search of wounds and death condemn'd to roam, Or crown'd with blood-stain'd spoils in Victory's car, Pants to return in peace to his dear native home. * «The lovers of elegant literature are much indebted to Miss Seward, not only for her original productions, but for the very highlyfinished Version of some Odes of Horace, which she has presented to the public. The striking superiority of her specimens must be felt and acknowledged by all persons of taste, who have looked into the attempts of Creech and Francis. I shall venture to assert, in defiance of pedagogues and pedants, that Miss Seward's Translation of the Ode to Barine will not suffer from the strictest comparison with the original-that- indeed it is more beautiful. From this persuasion, and to bear testimony to her poetical merit, I an induced to inscribe to that lady the above version of the prior part of Horace's Ode to Grosplius, and likewise a translation of a delicious morceau of a more ancient bard, the fourth Idyllium of Mofchus The version from Horace perhaps may be rather called an imitation than a translation; but that from Moschus will, I believe, be found to be as close a version as the idiom of English versification will admit "STEVENS. But neither anxious prayer nor gorgeous spoil, When Care, with vulture wing, scowls o'er the darken'd roof. How wisely, cheaply blest is he whose mind Nor Terror breaks his sleep, nor Guilt alarms his soul. Why aim we then the creatures of a day, To grasp the round of Jove's eternal year? From clime to clime, why ever-restless stray, Sick of the genial Sun, that gilds our native sphere? Sick of ourselves, ourselves we cannot flee: The wind invites thee;-swifter than the wind, Care at the helm thy ready pilot see! Or spur thy rapid steed; the demon sits behind! Ah, born so soon to die, so much to feel! O mortal man, indulge the short delight Thy present genius gives! nor lift the veil, Which hides in sacred shade the future from thy sight. FOURTH IDYLLIUM OF MOSCHUS. BY THE SAME. WHEN o'er unruffled Ocean's azure plain But when th' infuriate deep's vex'd billows roar, Where the tall pine-tree sings beneath the wind! INSCRIPTION UNDER A BUST OF ADDISON. O ADDISON, to thy lamented dust, And better Truths and Mysteries refine Thou great, best Censor of a vicious age, B. WALLER. |