But safely anchored in the happy port,

Led by her knight the golden sands she prest:

His heart beat high, his panting breath heaved short,
And sighs proclaim his agitated breast,

By some important secret thought opprest: "At length," he cries, "behold the fated spring! Yon rugged cliff conceals the fountain blest, (Dark rocks its crystal source o'ershadowing,) And Constance swift for thee the destined urn shall bring.

He speaks, but scarce she hears, her soul intent
Surveys as in a dream each well-known scene :
Now from the pointed hills her eye she bent
Inquisitive o'er all the sloping green;

The graceful temple meet for Beauty's queen,
The orange groves that ever blooming glow,
The silvery flood, the ambrosial air serene,
The matchless trees that fragrant shade bestow,
All speak to Psyche's soul, all seem their queen to know.

Let the vain rover, who his youth has past Misled in idle search of happiness, Declare, by late experience taught at last, In all his toils he gained but weariness, Wooed the coy goddess but to find that less She ever grants where dearest she is bought; She loves the sheltering bowers of home to bless, Marks with her peaceful hand the favourite spot, And smiles to see that Love has home his Psyche brought.

On the dear earth she kneels the turf to press,
With grateful lips and fondly streaming eyes,
"Are these the unknown bowers of Happiness?
Oh! justly called, and gained at last!" she cries,
As eagerly to seize the urn she flies.

But lo! while yet she gazed with wondering eye,
Constance ascends the steep to gain the prize;
The eagle's eyry is not built so high

As soon she sees his star bright blazing to the sky.

With light and nimble foot the boy descends,
And lifts the urn triumphant in his hand;
Low at the turf-raised altar Psyche bends,
While her fond eyes her promised Love demand;
Close at her side her faithful guardians stand,
As thus with timid voice she pays her vows,
"Venus, fulfilled is thine adored command,
Thy voice divine the suppliant's claim allows,
The smile of favour grant, restore her heavenly spouse."

Scarce on the altar had she placed the urn,
When lo! in whispers to the ravished ear

Speaks the soft voice of Love! "Turn, Psyche, turn!
And see at last, released from every fear,

Thy spouse, thy faithful knight, thy lover here!"
From his celestial brow the helmet fell,

In joy's full glow, unveiled his charms appear,

Beaming delight and love unspeakable,

While in one rapturous glance their mingling souls they tell.

Two tapers thus, with pure converging rays,
In momentary flash their beams unite,
Shedding but one inseparable blaze

Of blended radiance and effulgence bright,
Self-lost in mutual intermingling light;
Thus, in her lover's circling arms embraced,
The fainting Psyche's soul, by sudden flight,
With his its subtlest essence interlaced;

Oh! bliss too vast for thought! by words how poorly traced!

Fond youth whom Fate hath summoned to depart,

And quit the object of thy tenderest love,

How oft in absence shall thy pensive heart Count the sad hours which must in exile move, And still their irksome weariness reprove; Distance with cruel weight but loads thy chain With every step which bids thee farther rove, While thy reverted eye, with fruitless pain, Shall seek the trodden path its treasure to regain.

For thee what rapturous moments are prepared!
For thee shall dawn the long-expected day!
And he who ne'er thy tender woes hath shared,
Hath never known the transport they shall pay,
To wash the memory of those woes away:
The bitter tears of absence thou must shed,
To know the bliss which tears of joy convey,
When the long hours of sad regret are fled,
And in one dear embrace thy pains compensated!

Even from afar beheld, how eagerly

With rapture thou shalt hail the loved abode !
Perhaps already, with impatient eye,

From the dear casement she hath marked thy road,
And many a sigh for thy return bestowed!

Even there she meets thy fond enamoured glance:
Thy soul with grateful tenderness o'erflowed,
Which firmly bore the hand of hard mischance,
Faints in the stronger power of joy's o'erwhelming trance.

With Psyche thou alone canst sympathise,
Thy heart benevolently shares her joy!
See her unclose her rapture-beaming eyes,
And catch that softly pleasureable sigh,
That tells unutterable ecstasy!

While hark melodious numbers through the air,
On clouds of fragrance wafted from the sky,
Their ravished souls to pious awe prepare,

And lo! the herald doves the Queen of Love declare.

With fond embrace she clasped her long-lost son,

And gracefully received his lovely bride,

66

Psyche! thou hardly hast my favour won!"

With roseate smile her heavenly parent cried,
"Yet hence thy charms immortal, deified,
With the young Joys, thy future offspring fair,
Shall bloom for ever at thy lover's side;
All-ruling Jove's high mandate I declare,
Blest denizen of Heaven! arise, its joys to share."

She ceased, and lo! a thousand voices, joined
In sweetest chorus, Love's high triumph sing;
There, with the Graces and the Hours entwined,
His fairy train their rosy garlands bring,

Or round their mistress sport on halcyon wing;
While she enraptured lives in his dear eye,
And drinks immortal love from that pure spring
Of never-failing full felicity,

Bathed in ambrosial showers of bliss eternally!

Dreams of delight, farewell! your charms no more Shall gild the hours of solitary gloom!

The page remains-but can the page restore

The vanished bowers which Fancy taught to bloom?
Ah, no her smiles no longer can illume
The path my Psyche treads no more for me;
Consigned to dark oblivion's silent tomb,

The visionary scenes no more I see,

Fast from the fading lines the vivid colours flee !

END OF PSYCHE.

Aristippus, anecdote of, 404
Aristomenes, his tale of witchcraft,
Aristotle, 283, 284, 287; on epi-
lepsy, 299; on animals living
on fire, 358

Ascanius, his oath in the Æneid, 356
Asclepiades, the physician, anecdote
of, 401

Asinius Marcellus, priest of Osiris, 243
Aster, Plato's epigram on, 257
Atarnæ, 286

|Athenians, the, forbid the reading of
an intercepted letter from Phi-
lip to his wife, 331

Antigenidas, a famous flute-player, Athrax, 83

376

Antonius, M., 264, 314

Apelles, 379

Atrium, description of an, 25

Avitus, Lollianus, proconsul, 340

Aulis, the Greeks at, 368