And shut the chamber up, close, hush'd and still, But when the happy vintage touch'd their brains. Complete and ready for the revels rude,

When dreaded guests would come to spoil her Of powerful instruments:-the gorgeous dycs,

Until it seem'd a horrid presence there,
And not a man but felt the terror in his hair.
"Lamia!" he shriek'd: and nothing but the
shriek

With its sad echo did the silence break.

The roof of awful richness, nectarous cheer,
Beautiful slaves, and Lamia's self, appear,
Now, when the wine has done its rosy deed,
And every soul from human trammels freed,
No more so strange : for merry wine, sweet wine,
Will make Elysian shades not too fair, too divine."Begone, foul dream!" he cried, gazing again
Soon was God Bacchus at meridian height;
Flush'd were their cheeks, and bright eyes double
bright:

Garlands of every green, and every scent
From vales deflower'd, or forest trees, branch-
rent,

In baskets of bright osier'd gold were brought
High as the handles heap'd, to suit the thought
Of every guest; that each, as he did please,
Might fancy-fit his brows, silk-pillow'd at his ease.

What wreath for Lamia? What for Lycius?
What for the sage, old Apollonius ?
Upon her aching forehead be there hung
The leaves of willow and of adder's tongue;
And for the youth, quick, let us strip for him
The thyrsus, that his watching eyes may swim
Into forgetfulness; and, for the sage,

Let spear-grass and the spiteful thistle wage
War on his temples. Do not all charms fly

. At the mere touch of cold philosophy?

There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine-
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.

By her glad Lycius sitting, in chief place,
Scarce saw in all the room another face,
Till, checking his love trance, a cup he took
Full-brimm'd, and opposite sent forth a look
'Cross the broad table, to beseech a glance
From his old teacher's wrinkled countenance,
And pledge him. The bald-head philosopher
Had fix'd his eye, without a twinkle or stir
Full on the alarmed beauty of the bride,
Browceating her fair form, and troubling her sweet
pride.

Lycius then press'd her hand, with devout touch,
As pale it lay upon the rosy couch:

In the bride's face, where now no azure vein
Wander'd on fair-spaced temples; no soft bloom
Misted the cheek; no passion to illume
The deep-recessed vision:-all was blight;
Lamia, no longer fair, there sat a deadly white.
"Shut, shut those juggling eyes, thou ruthless
man!

Turn them aside, wretch! or the righteous ban
Of all the Gods, whose dreadful images
Here represent their shadowy presences,
May pierce them on the sudden with the thorn
Of painful blindness; leaving thee forlorn,
In trembling dotage to the feeblest fright
Of conscience, for their long-offended might,
For all thine impious proud-heart sophistries,
Unlawful magic, and enticing lies.
Corinthians! look upon that gray-beard wretch!
Mark how, possess'd, his lashless eyelids stretch
Around his demon eyes! Corinthians, see!
My sweet bride withers at their potency."
"Fool!" said the sophist, in an under-tone
Gruff with contempt; which a death-nighing moan
From Lycius answer'd, as heart-struck and lost,
He sank supine beside the aching ghost.
"Fool! Fool!" repeated he, while his eyes still
Relented not, nor moved; from every ill
Of life have I preserved thee to this day,
And shall I see thee made a serpent's prey ?"
Then Lamia breathed death-breath; the sophist's
eye,

Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly,
Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging: she, as well
As her weak hand could any meaning tell,
Motion'd him to be silent; vainly so,
He look'd and look'd again a level-No!
"A Serpent!" echoed he; no sooner said,
Than with a frightful scream she vanished:
And Lycius' arms were empty of delight,
As were his limbs of life, from that same night.
On the high couch he lay!-his friends came
round-

Supported him—no pulse, or breath they found,
And, in its marriage robe, the heavy body wound.*

'Twas icy, and the cold ran through his veins ; Then sudden it grew hot, and all the pains "Philostratus, in his fourth book de Vita Apollonii, Of an unnatural heat shot to his heart. hath a memorable instance in this kind, which I may "Lamia, what means this? Wherefore dost thou not omit, of one Menippus Lycius, a young man start? twenty-five years of age, that going betwixt Cenchreas

Know'st thou that man?" Poor Lamia answer'd and Corinth, met such a phantasm in the habit of a fair

gentlewoman, which taking him by the hand, carried him home to her house, in the suburbs of Corinth, and told him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if he would tarry with her, he should hear her sing and play, and drink such wine as never any drank, and no man should molest him; but she, being fair and lovely, would die with him, that was fair and lovely to behold. The young man, a philosopher, otherwise staid and discrect, able to moderate his passions, though not this of love, tarried with her a while to his great content, and a last married her, to whose wedding, amongst other guests, came Apollonius; who, by some probable conjectures, found her out to be a serpent, a lamia; and that all her furniture was, like Tantalus' gold, described by Homer, no substance but mere illusions.

Too many doleful stories do we see,

ISABELLA.

Whose matter in bright gold were best be read; Except in such a page where Theseus' spouse Over the pathless waves towards him bows.

XIII.

But, for the general award of love,

The little sweet doth kill much bitterness;
Though Dido silent is in under-grove,

And Isabella's was a great distress,
Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove

Yet so they did-and every dealer fair
Must see behind, as doth the hunted hare.

XIX.

O eloquent and famed Boccaccio!

Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon,
And of thy spicy myrtles as they blow,
And of thy roses amorous of the moon,

And of thy lilies, that do paler grow

9

Now they can no more hear thy ghittern's tune, For venturing syllables that ill beseem

Was not embalm'd, this truth is not the less-The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.

Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,
Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.

XIV.

With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,
Enriched from ancestral merchandise,
And for them many a weary hand did swell
In torched mines and noisy factories,
And many once proud-quiver'd loins did meit
In blood from stinging whip;―with hollow eyes
Many all day in dazzling river stood,

To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.

XV.

For them the Ceylon diver heid his breath,
And went all naked to the hungry shark;
For them his ears gush'd blood; for them in death
The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark
Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe
A thousand men in troubles wide and dark:
Hali-ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel,
That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.

XVI.

Why were they proud? Because their marble founts

Gush'd with more pride than de a wretch's

tears?

XX.

Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale
Shall move on soberly, as it is meet;
There is no other crime, no mad assail

To make old prose in modern rhyme inore

sweet:

But it is done-succeed the verse or fail

To stead thee as a verse in English tongue,
To honour thee, and thy gone spirit greet;
An echo of thee in the north-wind sung.

XXI.

These brethren having found by many signs
What love Lorenzo for their sister had,
And how she loved him too, each unconfines

His bitter thoughts to other, well-nigh mad
That he, the servant of their trade designs,

Should in their sister's love be blithe and glad, When 'twas their plan to coax her by degrees To some high noble and his olive-trees.

XXII.

And many a jealous conference had they,
And many times they bit their lips alone,
Before they fix'd upon a surest way

To make the youngster for his crime atone;

Why were they proud? Because fair orange-And at the last, these men of cruel clay

XXV.

And as he to the court-yard pass'd along,
Each third step did he pause, and listen'd oft
If he could hear his lady's matin-song,

Or the light whisper of her footstep soft;
And as he thus over his passion hung,

He heard a laugh full musical aloft;
When, looking up, he saw her features bright
Smile through an in-door lattice, all delight.

XXVI.

"Love, Isabel!" said he, "I was in pain
Lest I should miss to bid thee a good-morrow:
Ah! what if I should lose thee, when so fain
I am to stifle all the heavy sorrow
Of a poor three hour's absence? but we'll gain
Out of the amorous dark what day doth borrow.
Good-bye! I'll soon be back."-" Good-bye!"

said she:

And as he went she chanted merrily.

XXVII.

XXXI.

But Selfishness, Love's cousin, held not long
Its fiery vigil in her single breast;
She fretted for the golden hour, and hung
Upon the time with feverish unrest-
Not long-for soon into her heart a throng
Of higher occupants, a richer zest,
Came tragic; passion not to be subdued,
And sorrow for her love in travels rude.

XXXII.

In the mid-days of autumn, on their eves
The breath of Winter comes from far away,
And the sick west continually bereaves

Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay
Of death among the bushes and the leaves,
To make all bare before he dares to stray
From his north cavern. So sweet Isabel
By gradual decay from beauty fell,

XXXIII.

Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes

She ask'd her brothers, with an eye all pale,
Striving to be itself, what dungeon climes
Could keep him off so long? They spake a tale
Time after time, to quiet her. Their crimes
Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom's
vale;

So the two brothers and their murder'd man
Rode past fair Florence, to where Arno's stream
Gurgles through straiten'd banks, and still doth fan
Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream
Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan
The brothers' faces in the ford did seem,
Lorenzo's flush with love. They pass'd the To see their sister in her snowy shroud.
And every night in dreams they groan'd aloud,

water