ΤΟ

MRS. HENRY T-GHE,

ON READING HER

"PSYCHE.”

1802.

TELL me the witching tale again,
For never has my heart or ear
Hung on so sweet, so pure a strain,
So pure to feel, so sweet to hear!

Say, Love! in all thy spring of fame, When the high heaven itself was thine;

When piety confess'd the flame,

And even thy errors were divine!

Did ever Muse's hand, so fair,'

A glory round thy temples spread? Did ever lip's ambrosial air

Such perfume o'er thy altars shed?

One maid there was, who round her lyre
The mystic myrtle wildly wreath’d—
But all her sighs were sighs of fire,

The myrtle wither'd, as she breath'd!

Oh! you, that love's celestial dream,
In all its purity, would know,
Let not the senses' ardent beam
Too strongly through the vision glow!

Love sweetest lies, conceal'd in night,
The night where heaven has bid him lie;
Oh! shed not there unhallow'd light,

Or, PSYCHE knows, the boy will fly 1!

'See the story in Apuleius. With respect to this beautiful allegory of Love and Psyche, there is an ingenious idea suggested by the senator Buonarotti, in his "Osservazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi antichi." He thinks the fable is taken from some very occult mysteries, which had long been celebrated in honour of Love; and he accounts, upon this supposition, for the silence of the more ancient authors upon the subject, as it was not till towards the decline of pagan superstition, that writers could venture to reveal or discuss such ceremonies: accordingly, he observes, we find Lucian and Plutarch treating, without reserve, of the Dea Syria, and Isis and Osiris; and Apuleius, who nas given us the story of Cupid and Psyche, has also detailed some of the mysteries of Isis. See the Giornale di Litterati d'Italia, Tom. xxvii. Articol. 1. See also

1

Dear PSYCHE! many a charmed hour,
Through many a wild and magic waste,
To the fair fount and blissful bower 2
Thy mazy foot my soul hath trac'd!

Where'er thy joys are number'd now,
Beneath whatever shades of rest,
The Genius of the starry brow3
Has chain'd thee to thy Cupid's breast;

Whether above the horizon dim,

Along whose verge our spirits stray, (Half sunk within the shadowy brim, Half brighten'd by the eternal ray1)

the observations upon the ancient gems in the Museum Florentinum, Vol. i. p. 156.

I cannot avoid remarking here an error into which the French Encyclopédistes have been led by M. Spon, in their article Psyche. They say "Petrone fait un recit de la pompe nuptiale de ces deux amans (Amour & Psyche). Deja, dit-il, &c. &c." The Psyche of Petronius, however, is a servant-maid, and the marriage which he describes is that of the young Pannychis. See Spon's Recherches curieuses, &c. Dissertat. 5.

2 Allusions to Mrs. T-ghe's poem.

• Constancy.

By this image the Platonists expressed the middle state of the soul between sensible and intellectual existence.

Thou risest to a cloudless pole!

Or, lingering here, dost love to mark The twilight walk of many a soul Through sunny good and evil dark ;

Still be the song to PSYCHE dear,

The song, whose dulcet tide was given, To keep her name as fadeless, here, As nectar keeps her soul, in heaven!

IMPROMPTU,

UPON LEAVING SOME FRIENDS.

O DULCES COMITUM VALETE CŒTUS!

Catullus.

No, never shall my soul forget

The friends I found so cordial-hearted;

Dear shall be the day we met,

And dear shall be the night we parted!

Oh! if regrets, however sweet,

Must with the lapse of time decay, Yet still, when thus in mirth you meet, Fill high to him that's far away!

Long be the flame of memory found,
Alive, within your social glass,
Let that be still the magic round,

O'er which oblivion dares not pass!