ORIGINAL POETRY.

FOR THE ANTHOLOGY.

ANOTHER "CASTLE IN THE AIR."

TO MARY.

"TO me, like Phidias, were it given,
"To form from clay the man sublime;
"And like Prometheus, steal from heaven
"The animating spark divine."

Thus once in rhapsody you cried;
As for complexion, form, and air,
No matter what, if thought preside,
And fire and feeling mantle there.
Deep on the tablets of his mind,

Be learning, science, taste, imprest;
Let piety a refuge find

Within the foldings of his breast.

Let him have suffered much....since we
Alas! are early doom'd to know,

All human virtue we can see

Is only perfected through wo.

Purer th' ensuing breeze we find,

When whirlwinds first the skies deform; And hardier grows the mountain hind, Bleaching beneath the wintry storm.

But, above all, may heaven impart

That talent, which completes the whole; The finest, and the rarest art,

To analyse a woman's soul.

WOMAN! that happy, wretched thing!
Of causeless smile, of nameless sigh;
So oft, whose joys unbidden spring,
So oft, who weeps, she knows not why.

Her piteous griefs; her joys so gay;

All that afflicts, and all that cheers;

All her erratick fancy's play;

Her flutt'ring hopes, her trembling fears.

With passions chasten'd, not subdued,
Let dull inaction stupid reign;

Be his the ardour of the good,

Their loftier thought, and nobler aim

Firm as the tow'ring bird of Jove,
The mightiest shocks of life to bear;
Yet gentle as the captive dove,

In social suffering to share.

If such there be, to such alone

Would I thy worth, belov'd! resign; Secure, each bliss that time hath known, Would consummate a lot like thine..

But if this gilded human scheme

"dream,"

Be but the pageant of the brain;
Of such slight "stuff" as forms our
Which, waking, we must seek in vain.

Each gift of nature and of art

Still lives within thyself enshrin'd;
Thine are the blossoms of the heart,
And thine the scions of the mind!

And if the matchless wreath shall blend
With foliage other than its own;
Or, destin'd not its sweets to lend,
Shall flourish for thyself alone :

Still cultivate the plants with care;

From weeds, from thorns, oh keep them free;

Till ripen❜d for a purer air,

They bloom in immortality!

HORACE, ODE 11. LIB. }.

Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, &c.

Seek not Leuconoe, with anxious care,
To know what fate the gods prepare
For me or thee; nor vainly try,

By magick charms the future to descry.
But wiser far, receive with dauntless breast
Whate'er each hour may bring, as best;
Whether great Jove shall grant thee more,
Or thy last winter lash the Tuscan shore.

Then quaff your wine, contract your hopes, be wise; E'en while we speak, the moment flies;

Trust not the morrow, seize to day,

And pluck life's flowers e'er yet they fade away.

C.

To the Epicureanism of the preceding Ode I have endeavoured to give a christian turn in the following

IMITATION.

1. Ah do not seek, my dearest friend,
With anxious care to know

Or how, or when, thy life shall end,
Or what thy fate below.

2. The same kind Power, that gave thee breath,
Still holds thee in his hand;

And when he bids thee sleep in death,

All wise is his command.

3. The power, whose watchful goodness feeds
The warblers of the air,

And clothes with flowers the smiling meads,
Shalt thou not be his care?

4. If lengthen'd years thy life should crown,
Then be his praise express'd;

Or if in this he cut the down,
Still what he does is best.

5. The bounties, every hour supplies,
Receive with grateful mind;
And, when thy fairest pleasure dies,
Be humble and resign'd.

6. Contract your hopes; how short at best
The term of earthly bliss ?

Let brighter worlds fill all thy breast;
We are but born in this.

7. How swift our moments steal away,
E'en while we speak they fly:
Trust not the morrow, seize to day,
And only live to die.

C.

ANACREON TO THE PAINTER OF HIS MISTRESS.

MATCHLESS Painter, skill'd to trace
The mimick form with added grace,
Who to wax hast power to give
Shades that speak, and looks that live;

Master of the Rhodian art,

Come, and to thy wax impart

Every trait, and every grace

Of my Thais' form and face.
Absent though my charmer be,
Paint her just as bid by me.

VO. VII.

41

!

t

First her tresses pencil true,
Soft, and of a jetty hue;
And, if the waxen tablet may,
Make it breathe as sweet as they..
Next, beneath her auburn hair,
O'er a cheek that's full and fair,
Let a beauteous forehead rise,
That in white with ivory vies.
Then the eyebrows, while between
A little space is faintly seen,
Sketch them verging to unite,
Nor divide, nor blend them quite.
And like her, the nymph design'd,
With her brows thus faintly join'd,
Let the faithful painting show
The dark, long lashes sketch'd below.
Paint her to the life entire,
Glancing round her looks of fire
Like Minerva's, let her eye
Match the azure of the sky;
Like Cytherea's, make it too
Moist, and sparkling, as the dew.
Then o'er the tablet, duly spread
Mingled shades of white and red,
Till a fair complexion glows

Of blended milk with blushing rose,
Paint her lips of vermil hue,

Warm and moist with fragrant dew,
Like Pitho's, form'd for am'rous bliss,

Challenging a melting kiss.
Underneath her dimpled chin,
Cloth'd with soft transparent skin,
And round her neck of seemly height,
As alabaster smooth and white,
Let the graces all be seen
Flitting, as with beauty's queen,
And the portrait to complete,
Array her plain, and simply neat,*
In purple robes of faintest shade,
With little nakedness display'd.
Be her faultless form express'd,
And fancy leave to guess the rest.
'Tis enough; methinks I see
The speaking portrait smile on me.

*Simplex munditils.

H******.

Hor.

THE BOSTON REVIEW,

FOR

NOVEMBER, 1809.

Librum tuum legi et quam diligentissime potui annotavi, quae commutanda, quae eximenda, arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari mePLIN.

rentur.

ART. 13.

Works of Fisher Ames, compiled by a number of his friends, to which are prefixed notices of his life and character. Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit. Boston, T. B. Wait & Co. 1809, 8vo. 519 pages.

OUR country has, perhaps, never produced a man more distinguished than Fisher Ames, for that facility and felicity of intellectual conception, which men denominate genius. On whatever subject, or in whatever situation his mind was called into action, its track was, in an extraordinary degree, luminous and elevated. Whether he wrote or conversed, whether the object of his thought was abstruse or familiar, whether it had relation to the great exigencies of nations, or to the ordinary concerns of private life, the splendour evolved in its course scarce ever failed to excite the delight or the wonder of beholders. Those who would not follow, were compelled to admire; those, who coincided in his opinions, were filled with mingled emotions of joy and gratitude for the light and truth which he shed. His genius irradiated the path of his publick life with a brilliancy which has not yet faded, and which will never fade from the recollection of his cotemporaries.

There was also in the private life of this man a purity, and in his manner a sweetness, which won the affections, and fixed an interest in the heart, which mere mind seldom seeks, and of itself never acquires. It was impossible for any one to hold frequent converse with him, without perceiving his own standard of moral sentiment elevating, and his intellectual horizon becoming purer and more extensive. For to familiar observers of the character of Ames the excceding delicacy of its