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ΤΟ

J. H. REYNOLDS, Esq.

MY DEAR REYNOLDS,

You will remember " Lycus." It was written in the pleasant spring-time of our friendship, and I am glad to maintain that association, by connecting your name with the Poem. It will gratify me to find that you regard it with the old partiality for the writings of each other, which prevailed in those days. For my own sake, I must regret that your pen goes now into far other records than those which used to delight me.

Your true Friend and Brother,

T. HOOD.

LYCUS, THE CENTAUR.

FROM AN UNROLLED MANUSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS CURIUS,

THE ARGUMENT.

Lycus, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved by a Water Nymph. who desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to the Sorceress. Circe gives ber an incantation to pronounce, which should turn Lycus into a horse; but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to break off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur.

WHO hath ever been lured and bound by a spell
To wander, fore-doom'd, in that circle of hell
Where Witchery works with her will like a god,
Works more than the wonders of time at a nod,-
At a word, at a touch,-at a flash of the eye,
But each form is a cheat, and each sound is a lie,
Things born of a wish-to endure for a thought,
Or last for long ages-to vanish to nought,
Or put on new semblance? O Jove, I had given
The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven,
And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or whether
They kept the world's birth-day and brighten'd together!
For I loved them in terror, and constantly dreaded

That the earth where I trod, and the cave where I bedded,
The face I might dote on, should live out the lease
Of the charm that created, and suddenly cease:
And I gave me to slumber, as if from one dream
To another-each horrid-and drank of the stream

Like a first taste of blood, lest as water I quaff'd

Swift poison, and never should breathe from the draught,—
Such drink as her own monarch husband drain'd up

When he pledged her, and Fate closed his eyes in the cup.
And I pluck'd off the fruit with held breath, and a fear
That the branch would start back and scream out in my ear;
For once, at my suppering, I pluck'd in the dusk
An apple, juice-gushing and fragrant of musk;
But by daylight my fingers were crimson'd with gore,
And the half-eaten fragment was flesh at the core;
And once-only once-for the love of its blush,
I broke a bloom bough, but there came such a gush
On my hand, that it fainted away in weak fright,
While the leaf-hidden woodpecker shriek'd at the sight;
And oh! such an agony thrill'd in that note,

That my soul starting up, beat its wings in my throat,
As it long'd to be free of a body whose hand
Was doom'd to work torments a Fury had plann'd!

There I stood without stir, yet how willing to flee, As if rooted and horror-turn'd into a tree,Oh! for innocent death,—and to suddenly win it, I drank of the stream, but no poison was in it; I plunged in its waters, but ere I could sink, Some invisible fate pull'd me back to the brink; I sprang from the rock, from its pinnacle height, But fell on the grass with a grasshopper's flight; I ran at my fears-they were fears and no more, For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the boar, But moan'd,-all their brutalized flesh could not smother The horrible truth,—we were kin to each other!

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