FROM THE PROMETHEUS VINCTUS OF ÆSCHYLUS.
GREAT Jove, to whose almighty throne
Both gods and mortals homage pay,
Ne'er may my soul thy power disown,
Thy dread behests ne'er disobey.
Oft shall the sacred victim fall
In sea-girt Ocean's mossy hall;
My voice shall raise no impious strain
'Gainst him who rules the sky and azure main.
How different now thy joyless fate,
Since first Hesione thy bride,
When placed aloft in godlike state,
The blushing beauty by thy side,
Thou sat'st, while reverend Ocean smiled,
And mirthful strains the hours beguiled,
The Nymphs and Tritons danced around,
Nor yet thy doom was fix'd, nor Jove relentless frown'd.
SINCE now the hour is come at last,
When you must quit your anxious lover;
Since now our dream of bliss is past,
One pang, my girl, and all is over.
Alas! that pang will be severe,
Which bids us part to meet no more;
Which tears me far from one so dear,
Departing for a distant shore.
Well! we have pass'd some happy hours,
And joy will mingle with our tears;
When thinking on these ancient towers,
The shelter of our infant years;
Where from this Gothic casement's height,
We view'd the lake, the park, the dell;
And still, though tears obstruct our sight,
We, lingering, look a last farewell.
O'er fields through which we used to run,
And spend the hours in childish play;
O'er shades where, when our race was done,
Reposing on my breast you lay ;
Whilst I, admiring, too remiss,
Forgot to scare the hovering flies,
Yet envy'd every fly the kiss
It dared to give your slumbering eyes;
See still the little painted bark,
In which I row'd you o'er the lake;
See there, high waving o'er the park,
The elm I clambered for your sake.
These times are past-our joys are gone,
You leave me, leave this happy vale;
These scenes I must retrace alone:
Without thee, what will they avail?
Who can conceive, who has not proved,
The anguish of a last embrace?
When, torn from all you fondly loved,
You bid a long adieu to peace.
This is the deepest of our woes,
For this these tears our cheeks bedew, This is of love the final close,
WHENE'ER I view those hips of thine,
Their hue invites my fervent kiss;
Yet I forego that bliss divine,
Alas! it were unhallow'd bliss.
Whene'er I dream of that pure breast,
How could I dwell upon its snows!
Yet is the daring wish represt;
For that would banish its repose.
A glance from thy soul-searching eye
Can raise with hope, depress with fear
Yet I conceal my love,-and why?
I would not force a painful tear.
I ne'er have told my love, yet thou
Hast seen my ardent flame too well;
And shall I plead my passion now,
To make thy bosom's heaven a hell?
No! for thou never canst be mine,
United by the priest's decree:
By any ties but those divine,
Mine, my belov'd, thou ne'er shalt be.
Then let the secret fire consume,
Let it consume, thou shalt not know:
With joy I court a certain doom,
Rather than spread its guilty glow.
I will not ease my tortured heart,
By driving dove-eyed peace from thine
Rather than such a sting impart,
Each thought presumptuous I resign.
Yes! yield those lips, for which I'd brave;
More than I here shall dare to tell;
Thy innocence and mine to save-
I bid thee now a last farewell.
Yes! yield that breast, to seek despair,
And hope no more thy soft embrace:
Which to obtain my soul would dare,
All, all reproach-but thy disgrace.
At least from guilt shalt thou be free,
No matron shall thy shame reprove;
Though cureless pangs may prey on me,
No martyr shalt thou be to love.
THINK'ST thou I saw thy beauteous eyes,
Suffused in tears, implore to stay;
And heard unmoved thy plenteous sighs,
Which said far more than words can say?
Though keen the grief thy tears exprest,
When love and hope lay both o'erthrown;
Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast
Throbb'd with deep sorrow as thine own.
But when our cheeks with anguish glow'd,
When thy sweet lips were join'd to mine,
The tears that from my eyelids flow'd,
Were lost in those which fell from thine.
Thou couldst not feel my burning cheek,
Thy gushing tears had quench'd its flame;
And as thy tongue essay'd to speak,
In sighs alone it breathed my name.
And yet, my girl, we weep in vain,
In vain our fate in sighs deplore;
Remembrance only can remain,--
But that will make us weep the more.
Again, thou best belov'd, adieu!
Ah! if thou canst, o'ercome regret;
Nor let thy mind past joys review,-
Our only hope to forget!
WHEN I hear you express an affection so warm,
Ne'er think, my beloved, that I do not believe;
For your lip would the soul of suspicion disarm,
And your eye beams a ray which can never deceive.
Yet, still this fond bosom regrets, while adoring,
That love, like the leaf, must fall into the sear;
That age will come on, when remembrance deploring,
Contemplates the scenes of our youth with a tear.
That the time must arrive, when, no longer retaining
Their auburn, those locks must wave thin to the breeze
When a few silver hairs of those tresses remaining
Prove nature a prey to decay and disease.
"Tis this, my beloved, which spreads gloom o'er my features,
Tho' I ne'er shall presume to arraign the decree
Which God has proclaim'd as the fate of his creatures,
In the death which one day will deprive you of me.
Mistake not, sweet sceptic, the cause of emotion,
No doubt can the mind of your lover invade;
He worships each look with such faithful devotion,
A smile can enchant, or a tear can dissuade.
But as death, my beloved, soon or late shall o'ertake us,
And our breasts, which, alive, with such sympathy glow,
Will sleep in the grave till the blast shall awake us,
When calling the dead, in earth's bosom laid low,
Oh! then let us drain, while we may, draughts of pleasure,
Which from passion like ours may unceasingly flow;
Let us pass round the cup of love's bliss in full measure,
And quaff the contents as our nectar below.
OH! when shall the grave hide for ever my sorrow?
Oh! when shall my soul wing her flight from this clay?
The present is hell, and the coming to-morrow
But brings, with new torture, the curse of to-day.
From my eye flows no tear, from my lips flow no curses,
I blast not the fiends who have hurled me from bliss;
For poor is the soul which bewailing rehearses
Its querulous grief, when in anguish like this.
Was my eye, 'stead of tears, with red fury flakes bright'ning, Would my lips breathe a flame which no stream could assuage On our foes should my glance launch in vengeance its lightning: With transport my tongue give a loose to its rage.
But now tears and curses, alike unavailing,
Would add to the souls of our tyrants delight;
Could they view us our sad separation bewailing,
Their merciless hearts would rejoice at the sight.
Yet still, though we bend with a feign'd resignation,
Life beams not for us with one ray that can cheer;
Love and hope upon earth bring no more consolation;
In the grave is our hope, for in life is our fear.
Oh! when, my adored, in the tomb will they place me,
Since in life, love and friendship for ever are fled?
If again in the mansion of death I embrace thee,
Perhaps they will leave unmolested the dead.
STANZAS TO A LADY,
WITH THE POEMS OF CAMOENS.
THIS Votive pledge of fond esteem,
Perhaps, dear girl! for me thou'lt prize,
It sings of Love's enchanting dream,
A theme we never can despise.
Who blames it but the envious fool,
The old and disappointed maid;
Or pupil of the prudish school,
In single sorrow doom'd to fade?
Then read, dear girl! with feeling read,
For thou wilt ne'er be one of those;
To thee in vain I shall not plead
In pity for the poet's woes.
He was in sooth a genuine bard;
His was no faint, fictitious flaine:
Like his, may love be thy reward,
But not thy hapless fate the same.
THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE.
Α Βαρόντος δε χορδαίς
Ερωτα μουνον ἠχει.
AWAY with your fictions of flimsy romance,
Those tissues of falsehood which folly has wove!
Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance,
Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.
Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with phantasy glow,
Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove;
From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow,
Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love!
If Apollo should e'er his assistance refuse,
Or the Nine be disposed from your service to rove,
Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the muse.
And try the effect of the first kiss of love:
I hate you, ye cold compositions of art!
Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots repr
I court the effusions that spring from the heart,
Which throbs with delight to the first kiss of love.
Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes,
Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move,
Arcadia displays but a region of dreams:
What are visions like these to the first kiss of love!
Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth,
From Adam till now, has with wretchedness strove,
Some portion of paradise still is on earth,
And Eden revives in the first kiss of love.
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