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There shone the image of the master-mind; | Two golden talents lay amidst in sight, There earth, there heaven, there ocean, he The prize of him who best adjudged the right.

designed;

The unwearied sun, the moon completely round;

Another part-a prospect differing far

The starry lights that heaven's high convex Glowed with refulgent arms and horrid war:

crowned;

The Pleiads, Hyads, with the northern team,
And great Orion's more refulgent beam,
To which, around the axle of the sky,
The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye,
Still shines exalted on the ethereal plain,
Nor bathes his blazing forehead in the
main.

Two cities radiant on the shield appear-
The image one of peace, and one of war;
Here sacred pomp and genial feast delight,
And solemn dance and hymeneal rite;
Along the street the new-made brides are led,
With torches flaming, to the nuptial bed;
The youthful dancers in a circle bound
To the soft flute and cithern's silver sound
Through the fair streets the matrons in a

row

Stand in their porches and enjoy the show.

There in the forum swarm a numerous train,
The subject of debate a townsman slain :
One pleads the fine discharged, which one
denied,

And bade the public and the laws decide;
The witness is produced on either hand:
For this or that the partial people stand;
The appointed heralds still the noisy bands.
And form a ring with sceptres in their hands;
On seats of stone, within the sacred place,
The reverend elders nodded o'er the case;
Alternate each the attesting sceptre took,
And, rising solemn, each his sentence spoke;

Two mighty hosts a leaguered town embrace, And one would pillage, one would burn, the place.

Meantime, the townsmen, armed with silent

care,

A secret ambush on the foe prepare; Their wives, their children and the watchful band

Of trembling parents on the turrets stand; They march, by Pallas and by Mars made. bold.

Gold were the gods, their radiant garments gold,

And gold their armor: these the squadron led,

August, divine, superior, by the head;

A place for ambush fit they found, and stood, Covered with shields, beside a silver flood; Two spies at distance lurk, and watchful

seem

If sheep or oxen seek the winding stream; Soon the white flocks proceeded o'er the plains,

And steers slow-moving, and two shepherdswains;

Behind them piping on their reeds they go,
Nor fear an ambush, nor suspect a foe.
In arms the glittering squadron, rising round,
Rush sudden hills of slaughter heap the
ground;

Whole flocks and herds lie bleeding on the plains,

And all amidst them, dead, the shepherdswains;

The bellowing oxen the besiegers hear;
They rise, take horse, approach and meet the

war;

They fight, they fall, beside the silver flood:
The waving silver seemed to blush with blood.
There Tumult, there Contention, stood con-
fessed:

With sweeping stroke the mowers strow the lands

The gatherers follow and collect in bands; And last the children, in whose arms are borne

Too short to gripe them—the brown sheaves
of corn;

One reared a dagger at a captive's breast;
One held a living foe that freshly bled
With new-made wounds; another dragged a A ready banquet on the turf is laid

The rustic monarch of the field descries
With silent glee the heaps around him rise;

dead;

Now here, now there, the carcases they tore:
Fate stalked amidst them grim with human

gore;

Beneath an ample oak's expanded shade;
The victim ox the sturdy youth prepare,
The reaper's due repast, the women's care.

And the whole war came out and met the Next, ripe in yellow gold, a vineyard shines,

eye,

And each bold figure seemed to live or die.

A field deep-furrowed next the god designed,
The third time labored by the sweating hind;
The shining shares full many ploughmen
guide,

And turn their crooked yokes on every side;
Still as at either end they wheel around,
The master meets them with his goblet
crowned;

The hearty draught rewards, renews their
toil,

Bent with the ponderous harvest of its

vines;

A deeper dye the dangling clusters show,
And curled on silver props in order glow;
A darker metal mixed intrenched the place,
And pales of glittering tin the enclosure

grace:

To this, one pathway, gently winding, leads, Where march a train with baskets on their heads

Fair maids and blooming youths that smiling bear

The purple product of the autumnal year; Then back the turning ploughshares cleave To these a youth awakes the warbling strings,

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Four golden herdsmen as their guardians | So whirls a wheel in giddy circle tossed, stand,

And nine sour dogs complete the rustic band;
Two lions rushing from the wood appeared,
And seized a bull, the master of the herd;

He roared in vain the dogs, the men, with-
stood;

And, rapid as it runs, the single spokes are
lost;

The gazing multitudes admire around
Two active tumblers in the centre bound;
Now high, now low, their pliant limbs they
bend,

They tore his flesh and drank his sable And general songs the sprightly revel end.

blood;

The dogs oft cheered in vain desert the prey,
Dread the grim terrors and at distance bay.

Next this the eye the art of Vulcan leads Deep through fair forests and a length of meads,

And stalls and folds and scattered cots between,

And fleecy flocks that whiten all the scene.

A figured dance succeeds-such one was

seen

In lofty Gnossus for the Cretan queen,
Formed by Dædalean art-a comely band
Of youths and maidens bounding hand in
hand,

The maids in soft simars of linen dressed,
The youths all graceful in the glossy vest;
Of those the locks with flowery wreath in-
rolled,

Of these the sides adorned with swords of

gold,

That, glittering gay, from silver belts de

pend;

Now all at once they rise, at once descend,

Thus the broad shield complete the artist crowned

With his last hand, and poured the ocean

round:

In living silver seemed the waves to roll, And beat the buckler's verge and bound the whole.

This done, whate'er a warrior's use requires He forged-the cuirass that outshone the fires,

The greaves of ductile tin, the helm im-
pressed

With various sculpture and the golden crest.
At Thetis' feet the finished labor lay:
She as a falcon cuts the aërial way,
Swift from Olympus' snowy summit flies,
And bears the blazing present through the
skies.

Translation of ALEXANDER POPE.

THE NORTHERN LIGHTS.

With well-taught feet now shape in oblique Tclaim the Arctic came the sun

ways,

Confusedly regular, the moving maze;
Now forth at once, too swift for sight, they
spring,

And undistinguished blend the flying ring:

With banners of the burning zone:
Unrolled upon their airy spars,
They froze beneath the light of stars;
And there they float, those streamers old,
Those Northern lights, for ever cold.

BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.

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IMMORTALITY.

F human souls, why not an-
gelic too,

Extinguished, and a solitary
God

O'er ghastly ruin frowning
from his throne?

Shall we this moment gaze
on God in man,

The next lose man for ever
in the dust?

man mistakes,

As light and heat essential to the sun,
These to the soul. And why, if souls ex-
pire?

How little lovely here! how little known!
Small knowledge we dig up with endless toil,
And love unfeigned may purchase perfect
hate.

Why starved on earth our angel appetites,
While brutal are indulged their fulsome fill?

From dust we disengage, or This cannot be. To love and know, in man,
Is boundless appetite and boundless power,
And these demonstrate boundless objects too.
Objects, powers, appetites, Heaven suits in
all,

And there where least his judgment fears a
flaw.

Wisdom and worth how boldly he commends!
Wisdom and worth are sacred names, re-
vered

Where not embraced, applauded, deified;
Why not compassioned too? If spirits die,
Both are calamities, inflicted, both,
To make us but more wretched. Wisdom's

eye

Acute for what? To spy more miseries;
And worth, so recompensed, new-points their
stings,

Or man surmounts the grave, or gain is loss,
And worth exalted humbles us the more.
Thou wilt not patronize a scheme that makes
Weakness and vice the refuge of mankind.

In man, the more we dive, the more we see
Heaven's signet stamping an immortal make.
Dive to the bottom of his soul, the base
Sustaining all what find we? Knowledge,
love.

Nor Nature through e'er violates this sweet
Eternal concord on her tuneful string.
Is man the sole exception from her laws?
Eternity struck off from human hope-
I speak with truth, but veneration too-
Man is a monster, the reproach of Heaven,
A stain, a dark impenetrable cloud
On Nature's beauteous aspect, and de-
forms-

Amazing blot!-deforms her with her lord.
If such is man's allotment, what is heaven?
Or own the soul immortal or blaspheme.

Or own the soul immortal or invert
All order. Go, mock-majesty! go, man!
And bow to thy superiors of the stall,
Through every scene of sense superior far:
They graze the turf untilled; they drink the

stream

Unbrewed and ever full, and unembittered

With doubts, fears, fruitless hopes, regrets,

despairs,

Mankind's peculiar, reason's precious, dower.

No foreign clime they ransack for their robes, Nor brothers cite to the litigious bar;

THE LION AND THE CUB.

OW fond are men of rule and place

How

Who court it from the mean and base!
These cannot bear an equal nigh,
But from superior merit fly.

Their good is good entire, unmixed, un- They love the cellar's vulgar joke,

marred;

They find a paradise in every field,

On boughs forbidden where no curses hang; Their ill no more than strikes the sense, unstretched

By previous dread or murmur in the rear; When the worst comes, it comes unfeared: one stroke

And lose their hours in ale and smoke;
There o'er some petty club preside,

So poor, so paltry, is their pride-
Nay, even with fools whole nights will sit,
In hopes to be supreme in wit.

If these can read, to these I write,
To set their worth in truest light.
A lion-cub of sordid mind

Begins and ends their woe; they die but Avoided all the lion-kind;

once.

Blessed, incommunicable privilege, for which Proud man, who rules the globe and reads the

stars,

Philosopher or hero, sighs in vain!

Account for this prerogative in brutes.
No day, no glimpse of day, to solve the knot
But what beams on it from eternity.
Oh, sole and sweet solution that unties.
The difficult and softens the severe,
The cloud on Nature's beauteous face dispels,
Restores bright order, casts the brute be-
neath

And re-enthrones us in supremacy

Of joy even here! Admit immortal life, And virtue is knight-errantry no more; Each virtue brings in hand a golden dower Far richer in reversion; Hope exults,

And, though much bitter in our cup is thrown, Predominates and gives the taste of heaven. Oh, wherefore is the Deity so kind? Astonishing beyond astonishment!

Fond of applause, he sought the feasts
Of vulgar and ignoble beasts;
With asses all his time he spent,
Their club's perpetual president.
He caught their manners, looks and airs,
An ass in everything but ears.
If e'er His Highness meant a joke,
They grinned applause before he spoke ;
But at each word what shouts of praise!
Good gods how natural he brays!
Elate with flattery and conceit,
He seeks his royal sire's retreat.
Forward and fond to show his parts,
His Highness brays; the lion starts:
"Puppy! that cursed vociferation.
Betrays thy life and conversation :
Coxcombs, an ever-noisy race,
Are trumpets of their own disgrace.'
"Why so severe ?" the cub replies.

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Our senate always held me wise.""How weak is pride!" returns the sire; "All fools are vain when fools admire; But know what stupid asses prize

Heaven our reward for heaven enjoyed below! Lions and noble beasts despise."

EDWARD YOUNG.

JOHN GAY.

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