Scarce able to believe my journey o'er,
And that these eyes behold thee safe once more!
Oh where's the luxury like a loosened heart,
When the mind, breathing, lays its load apart,—
When we come home again, tired out, and spread
The greedy limbs o'er all the wished-for bed!
This, this alone is worth an age of toil.
Hail, lovely Sirmio! Hail, paternal soil!

Joy, my bright waters, joy; your master's come
Laugh, every dimple on the cheek of home!

5 Scarce trusting, that my vagrant toil is o'er 1808, 1812.
7 a loosened] the smile at 1832-60.

7, 8 Is aught so blest as such a loose from care,
When the soul's load rests with us in the chair; 1808.

What, upon earth, is like a loose from care,

When the mind's load sinks in it's easy chair! 1812.

9 come home again, tired out] return from pilgrimage 1808. 10 greedy] loosen'd 1808, 1812, 1832-60.

wished-for] well-known 1808.

II This of itself repays the grinding toil,

And gives to failing knees the fresh'ning oil 1808.

12 Hail, paternal soil!] Meet thy master's smiles;

And laugh, thou sparkling lake, thro' all thine isles! 1808.

paternal] domestic 1812.

13 Joy, my bright waters, joy] Laugh, ev'ry social spot 1808.

ATYS

[First published in The Reflector, No. 1, 1810.

Reprinted 1818. Text 1818.]

ATYS o'er the distant waters, driving in his rapid bark,

Soon with foot of wild impatience touched the Phrygian forest dark,
Where amid the awful shades possessed by mighty Cybele,

In his zealous frenzy blind,

And wand'ring in his hapless mind,

With flinty knife he gave to earth the weights that stamp virility.
Then as the widowed being saw its wretched limbs bereft of man,
And the unaccustomed blood that on the ground polluting ran,
With snowy hand it snatched in haste the timbrel's airy round on high,
That opens with the trumpet's blast, thy rites, Maternal Mystery;

ΙΟ

And upon it's whirling fingers, while the hollow parchment rung,
Thus in outcry tremulous to its wild companions sung :-

Now come along, come along with me,

Worshippers of Cybele,

To the lofty groves of the deity!

Ye vagabond herds that bear the name

Of the Dindymenian dame !

Who seeking strange lands, like the banished of home,
With Atys, with Atys distractedly roam;

I driving] hurried 1810.

13 Now rush on, rush on with me, 1810.

Who your limbs have unmanned in a desperate hour

With a frantic disdain of the Cyprian pow'r ;

Who have carried my sect through the dreadful salt sea,
Rouse, rouse your wild spirits careeringly!

No delay, no delay,

But together away,

And follow me up to the Dame all-compelling,

To her high Phrygian groves and her dark Phrygian dwelling,
Where the cymbals they clash, and the drums they resound,
And the Phrygian's curved pipe pours its moanings around,
Where the ivy-crowned priestesses toss with their brows,
And send the shrill howl through their deity's house,
Where they shriek, and they scour, and they madden about,—
'Tis there we go bounding in mystical rout.

No sooner had spoken

This voice half-broken,

20

30

When suddenly from quivering tongues arose the universal cry,
The timbrels with a boam resound, the cymbals with a clash reply,
And up the verdant Ida with a quickened step the chorus flew,
While Atys with the timbrel's smite the terrible procession drew;
Raging, panting, wild, and witless, through the sullen shades it broke, 40
Like the fierce, unconquered heifer bursting from her galling yoke;
And on pursue the sacred crew, till at the door of Cybele,
Faint and fasting, down they sink, in pale immovability:

The heavy sleep-the heavy sleep-grow's o'er their failing eyes,
And locked in dead repose the rabid frenzy lies.

But when the Sun looked out with eyes of light

Round the firm earth, wild seas, and skies of morning white,
Scaring the lingering shades

With echo-footed steeds,

Sleep took her flight from Atys, hurrying

To his Pasithea's arms on tremulous wing;

And the poor dreamer woke, oppressed with sadness,

To mem'ry woke and to collected madness.

Struck with it's loss, with what it was, and where,

Back trod the wretched being in despair

To the sea-shore, and stretching forth its eye

O'er the wide waste of waters and of sky,

Thus to its country cried with tears of misery :

My country, oh my country, parent state,

Whom, like a very slave and runagate,
Wretch that I am, I left for wilds like these,
This wilderness of snows and matted trees,

To house with shiv'ring beasts and learn their wants,

A fierce intruder on their sullen haunts,

22 dreadful salt sea] sea and its terrors 1810.
23 Exult ye, exult in your fiercely-wrought errors! 1810.
50, 51 Sleep, from the suffering Atys, wing'd his charms
To fair Pasithaës' expectant arms, 1810.

60

Where shall I fancy thee? Where cheat mine eye
With tricking out thy quarter in the sky?
Fain, while my wits a little space are free,

Would my poor eyeballs strain their points on thee !
Am I then torn from home and far away?

Doomed through these woods to trample, day by day,
Far from my kindred, friends, and native soil,
The mall, the race, and wrestlers bright with oil?
Ah wretch, bewail, bewail; and think for this

On all thy past variety of bliss!

I was the charm of life, the social spring,
First in the race, and brightest in the ring:
Warm with the stir of welcome was my home;
And when I rose betimes, my friends would come
Smiling and pressing in officious scores,

Thick as the flow'rs that hang at lovers' doors:
And shall I then a ministring madman be
To angry gods ?-A howling devotee ?-
A slave to bear what never senses can,-
Half of myself, sexless,—a sterile man?
And must I feel, with never-varied woes,

Th' o'erhanging winter of these mountain snows?
Skulking through ghastly woods for evermore,

Like the lean stag, or the brute vagrant boar?
Ah me! Ah me! Already I repent ;

E'en now, e'en now I feel my shame and punishment!

As thus with rosy lips the wretch grew loud,

Startling the ears of heav'n's imperial crowd,
The Mighty Mistress o'er her lion yoke

Bowed in her wrath,-and loosening as she spoke
The left-hand savage, scatterer of herds,

Roused his fell nature with impetuous words :—

Fly, ruffian, fly, indignant and amain,
And scare this being, who resists my reign,
Back to the horror-breathing woods again!

Lash thee, and fly, and shake with sinewy might
Thine ireful hair, and as at dead of night
Fill the wild echoes with rebellowing fright!

Threatning she spoke, and loosed the vengeance dire,
Who, gath'ring all his rage, and glaring fire,
Starts with a roar, and scours beneath her eyes
Scatt'ring the splintered bushes as he flies :

83-4 A slave for Cybele to haunt and vex,

Half of myself,-a man without a sex? 1810.

85 with never-varied] unrespited of 1810.

87 Skulking. woods] Roam through the ghastly scene 1810. 88 Skulk with the stag, and wander with the boar? 1810.

P

Down by the sea he spies the wretch at last,
And springs precipitous :-the wretch as fast,
Flies raving back into his living grave,

And there for ever dwells, a savage and a slave.

O Goddess! Mistress! Cybele! dread name!

O mighty Pow'r! O Dindymenian dame !
Far from my home thy visitations be:

Drive others mad, not me:

Drive others into impulse wild and fierce insanity!

ACME AND SEPTIMIUS, OR THE ENTIRE AFFECTION

[First published in The Examiner, September 13, 1812. Reprinted 1814, 1815. Text 1814-15.]

CATULLUS TO CORNIFICIUS

CARMEN XXXVIII

[First published in The Examiner, October 4, 1812. Reprinted 1814, 1815. No variants.]

THE NUPTIAL SONG OF JULIA AND MANLIUS

[First published in The Examiner, May 12, 1816. Reprinted 1818. No variants.]