Dying, reveng'd the fate of him he lov'd.

Then on his bosom, sought his wonted place, And death was heavenly, in his friend's embrace! Celestial pair! if aught my verse can claim, Wafted on Time's broad pinion, yours is fame! Ages on ages shall your fate admire;

No future day shall see your names expire;
While stands the Capitol, immortal dome!
And vanquish'd millions hail their Empress, Rome!

TRANSLATION

FROM THE MEDEA OF EURIPIDES.

I.

WHEN fierce conflicting passions urge
The breast where love is wont to glow,
What mind can stem the stormy surge,
Which rolls the tide of human woe?
The hope of praise, the dread of shame,

Can rouse the tortur'd breast no more;
The wild desire, the guilty flame,

Absorbs each wish it felt before.

2.

But, if affection gently thrills

The soul, by purer dreams possest,
The pleasing balin of mortal ills,

In love can sooth the aching breast;
If thus, thou com'st in gentle guise,

Fair Venus! from thy native heaven,

What heart, unfeeling would despise

The sweetest boon the gods have given?

3.

But, never from thy golden bow,
May I beneath the shaft expire,
Whose creeping venom, sure and slow,
Awakes an all-consuming fire;
Ye racking doubts! ye jealous fears!
With others wage eternal war;
Repentance! source of future tears,
From me be ever distant far.

4.

May no distracting thoughts destroy
The holy calm of sacred love!
May all the hours be wing'd with joy,
Which hover faithful hearts above!

Fair Venus! on thy myrtle shrine,

May I with some fond lover sigh! Whose heart may mingle pure with mine, With me to live, with me to die.

5.

My native soil! belov❜d before,
Now dearer, as my peaceful home,
Ne'er may I quit thy rocky shore,
A hapless, banish'd wretch to roam;
This very day, this very hour,

May I resign this fleeting breath,
Nor quit my silent, humble bower;

A doom, to me, far worse than death.

6.

Have I not heard the exile's sigh?
And seen the exile's silent tear?
Through distant climes condemn'd to fly,
A pensive, weary wand'rer here;
Ah! hapless dame! (1) no sire bewails,
No friend thy wretched fate deplores,
No kindred voice with rapture hails
Thy steps, within a stranger's doors.

7.

Perish the fiend whose iron heart,

To fair affection's truth unknown,
Bids her, he fondly lov'd, depart,
Unpitied, helpless, and alone!
Who ne'er unlocks, with silver key (2),
The milder treasures of his soul;

May such a friend be far from me,

And Ocean's storms between us roll!

(1) Medea, who accompanied Jason to Corinth, was deserted by him for the daughter of Creon, king of that city. The Chorus, from which this is taken, here address Medea; though a considerable liberty is taken with the original, by expanding the idea, as also in some other parts of the translation.

(2) The original is « Καθαραν άνοιξαντι Κληίδα φρενῶν : » literally, « Disclosing the bright key of the mind. »

מי

THOUGHTS SUGGESTED

BY A COLLEGE EXAMINATION.

HIGH in the midst, surrounded by his peers,
MAGNUS (1) his ample front sublime uprears;
Plac'd on his chair of state, he seems a God,
While Sophs and Freshmen tremble at his nod;
As all around sit wrapt in speechless gloom,
His voice, in thunder, shakes the sounding dome;
Denouncing dire reproach to luckless fools,
Unskill'd to plod in mathematic rules.

Happy the youth! in Euclid's axioms tried,
Though little vers'd in any art beside;
Who, scarcely skill'd an English line to pen,
Scans attic metres, with a critic's ken.

What! though he knows not how his fathers bled,
When civil discord pil'd the fields with dead;
When Edward bade his conquering bands advance,
Or Henry trampled on the crest of France;
Though, marv❜ling at the name of Magna Charta,
Yet, weil he recollects the laws of Sparta;

(1) No reflection is here intended against the person mentioned under the name of Magnus. He is merely represented as performing an unavoidable function of his office : indeed, such an attempt could only recoil upon myself; as that gentleman is now as much distinguished by his eloquence, and the dignified propriety, with which he fills his situation, as he was in his younger days, for wit and conviviality.