Page images
PDF
EPUB

Cannot be heard so high.-I 'll look no more; Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

ON the mountains wild 't is sweet,
When faint with rapid dance our feet,
Our limbs on earth all careless thrown
With the sacred fawn-skins strown,
To quaff the goat's delicious blood,
A strange, a rich, a savage food.
Then off again the revel goes

O'er Phrygian, Lydian mountain brows;
Evoë! Evoë! leads the road,

Bacchus's self the maddening god!

And flows with milk the plain, and flows with

wine,

Flows with the wild bees' nectar-dews divine; And soars, like smoke, the Syrian incense pale-

The while the frantic Bacchanal
The beaconing pine torch on her wand
Whirls around with rapid hand,
And drives the wandering dance about,
Beating time with joyous shout,
And casts upon the breezy air
All her rich luxuriant hair;
Ever the burthen of her song:-
"Raging, maddening, haste along,

Bacchus's daughters, ye the pride
Of golden Tmolus's fabled side;
While your heavy cymbals ring,
Still your Evoë! Evoë!' sing!"
Evoë! the Evian god rejoices

In Phrygian tones and Phrygian voices,
When the soft holy pipe is breathing sweet,
In notes harmonious to her feet,

Who to the mountain, to the mountain speeds;

Like some young colt that by its mother feeds,

Gladsome with many a frisking bound,

The Bacchanal goes forth and treads the echoing ground.

From the Greek of EURIPIDES. Translation of H. H. MILMAN.

AN ALPINE DESCENT.

My mule refreshed, his bells

Jingled once more, the signal to depart,
And we set out in the gray light of dawn,
Descending rapidly,-by waterfalls

Fast frozen, and among huge blocks of ice
That in their long career had stopt midway;
At length, unchecked, unbidden, he stood still,
And all his bells were muffled. Then my guide,
Lowering his voice, addressed me:-" Through this
chasm

On, and say nothing, for a word, a breath,
Stirring the air, may loosen and bring down

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

From an engraving.

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]
« PreviousContinue »