ADVERTISEMENT. THESE verses were written for a Benefit at the Dublin Theatre, and were spoken by Miss Smith, with a degree of success, which they owed solely to her admirable manner of reciting them. I wrote them in haste; and it very rarely happens that poetry, which has cost but little labour to the writer, is productive of any great pleasure to the reader. Under this impression, I should not have published them if they had not found their way into some of the newspapers, with such an addition of errors to their own original stock, that I thought it but fair to limit their responsibility to those faults alone which really belong to them. With respect to the title which I have invented for this Poem, I feel even more than the scruples of the Emperor Tiberius, when he humbly asked pardon of the Roman Senate for using "the outlandish term monopoly." But the truth is, having written the Poem with the sole view of serving a Benefit, I thought that an unintelligible word of this kind would not be without its attraction for the multitude, with whom," If 'tis not sense, at least 'tis Greek." To some of my readers, however, it may not be superfluous to say, that by "Melologue," I mean that mixture of recitation and music, which is frequently adopted in the performance of Collins's Ode on the Passions, and of which the most striking example I can remember is the prophetic speech of Joad in the Athalie of Racine. T. M. MELOLOGUE. THERE breathes a language, known and felt That language of the soul is felt and known. Where oft, of old, on some high tower, Not worlds could keep her from his arms away; * To the bleak climes of polar night, Where, beneath a sunless sky, * "A certain Spaniard, one night late, met an Indian woman in the streets of Cozco, and would have taken her to his home, but she cried out, "For God's sake, Sir, let me go; for that pipe, which you hear in yonder tower, calls me with great passion, and I cannot refuse the summons; for love constrains me to go, that I may be his wife, and he my husband."-Garcilasso de la Véga, in Sir Paul Rycaut's trans lation. The Lapland lover bids his rein-deer fly, And sings along the lengthening waste of snow, Of vernal Phœbus burn'd upon his brow. Is still resistless, still the same; And, faithful as the mighty sea To the pale star that o'er its realm presides, The spell-bound tides Of human passion rise and fall for thee! Greek Air. List! 'tis a Grecian maid that sings, She draws the cool lymph in her graceful urn ; And by her side, in music's charm dissolving, Some patriot youth, the glorious past revolving, Dreams of bright days that never can return! When Athens nursed her olive bough, With hands by tyrant power unchain'd, And braided for the muse's brow A wreath by tyrant touch unstain'd. When heroes trod each classic field Where coward feet now faintly falter; When every arm was Freedom's shield, Flourish of Trumpet. Hark! 'tis the sound that charms The war-steed's wakening ears!— Oh! many a mother folds her arms Is proud to feel his young pulse bound See! from his native hills afar A conqueror oft—a hero never- Oh Music! here, even here, Thy soul-felt charm asserts its wondrous power. |