Still on he flew, the maddening crew whirled after-at the shrine they stopp'd ;

There, wan and wearied, lifelessly they all upon the threshold

dropp'd;

All faint and fasting down they sank-a sullen trance their frenzy dims,

And leaden sleep seals up their eyes, and numbs their overwearied limbs.

But when the sun's fresh steeds had chased the dark, and with his radiant eyes

He gazed along the solid earth, the cruel seas, and golden

skies,

Sleep, leaving then the fever'd brain of Atys calm'd with downy rest,

Flew to divine Pasithea, who caught and clasp'd him to her breast.

The frenzied dream was past, and when the wretch saw what it was and where,

Again it tottered to the shore, in agony of fierce despair, There, gazing on the ocean's wide and waste expanse with streaming eyes,

With choked and broken voice unto the country of its birth it cries:

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My country, oh my country, my mother, and my nurse! from whom

I, like a recreant slave, have fled to Ida's dreary forest-gloom, To rocks, and snows, and frozen dens, to make with beasts my savage lair,

Where dost thou lie, thou loved land, my country, oh, my country, where?

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Oh, let me see thee, whilst my brain is yet awhile from madness free!

My very eyeballs turn, and turn, unceasingly in quest of

thee:

Friends, country, parents, all, all gone!—the throng, the struggle for the goal,

The wrestler's gripe-oh misery !-weep, weep, for ever weep, my soul !

"What grace, what beauty, but was mine? Boy, youth, and I was the flower

man,

Of the gymnasium; and the best, that wore the oil, confess'd

my power:

My doors were ever throng'd, and when I left my couch at break of day,

Fair garlands hung by beauteous hands around them welcomed me alway.

"What am I now? Slave to the gods-crazed votary of horrid rites

Maimed, barren, ever doomed to freeze on Ida's green and snow-girt heights,

'Neath Phrygia's frowning crags, where roam the stag and forest-ranging boar,

Woe, woe, that e'er I did the deed! that e'er I touched this fatal shore !"

The wandering winds caught up the words, as from his rosy lips they fell,

And bore those sounds so strangely wild to where the blest immortals dwell;

They reached the ears of Cybele, who loosed her lions from

the yoke,

And thus to him that drew the left in words of kindling ire

she spoke :

Away, away, pursue your prey! Scare, scare him back in wild affright,

Back to the woods, the wretch that spurns my service, and that scorns my might,

Lash, lash thy flanks, with furious roar shake terror from

thy shaggy mane,

Away, away!" She ceased, and flung upon his neck the loosen'd rein!

Frantic and fierce, with roar and plunge the monster through the thicket crash'd,

And on to the surf-beaten shore, where stood the gentle Atys, dash'd.

The wretch beheld him-wild with fear, into the shaggy forest fled,

And there in orgies drear a life of ministering bondage led.

Oh goddess ever to be feared, oh goddess great and wonderous, Oh Cybele divine, that hast thy reign on shady Dindymus, Oh may thy madness never touch my heart, nor blast my trembling brain,

In others let thy visions wild, thy frenzied inspirations reign!

G

THE NUPTIALS OF PELEUS AND THETIS.

OME, list with me a legend old and true,
When pines, that erst on Pelion's ridges grew,
Swam through the waves of Neptune to the strand
Of Phasis and the stern Eetes' land!

Then did a chosen band, the flower of Greece,
From Colchis bent to wrest the Golden Fleece,
Dare in swift ship the treacherous waves to sweep,
Cleaving with oars of fir the azure deep.
For them the goddess who in cities dwells,
Serene amid their topmost citadels,
Welding to curvèd keel stout ribs of pine,
The chariot framed with virgin hands divine,
Which birdlike flew before the lightest breeze,
Through Amphitrite's yet untravell'd seas.
Soon as its prow the breezy waters shore,
That broke in foam around the torturing oar,
Out of the creaming surges in amaze

Wild faces rose on that strange sight to gaze-
The Nereids of the deep; and mortals then
Beheld, what never they beheld again,
The Nymphs of Ocean lift their rosy breasts
Above the foam-flakes of the billows' crests.
Then Peleus, then, with love for Thetis burn'd,
Nor was by Thetis mortal wedlock spurn'd,

And Jove himself approved the vows, that gave
The god-born maid to paramour so brave.

Hail, heroes born in that auspicious time,
When life was young and earth was in her prime!
Hail, progeny of gods! And mother, you
Within your breast who bore that band so true!*
Oft shall your names be echoed in my lay;
Thine, too, of Thessaly the prop and stay,
Who, in thy nuptials with that golden fair,
'Mongst men wert honour'd far beyond compare;

* The text of the original is here manifestly corrupt. The ordinary reading is

O nimis optato sæclorum tempore nati

Heroes, salvete, deûm genus; o bona mater!
Vos ego sæpe meo vos carmine compellabo.

The difficulty here is the meaning to be attached to "bona mater." This has been generally held to apply to the ship Argo, assuming her, by a bold poetical metaphor, to be the mother of the crew. This reading has been followed in the translation. Heyse, doubtless on the authority of some of the manuscripts, but which of them is not stated, reads –

Progenies, salvete iterum

O bona matrum

with a hiatus for the rest of the line. This reading does not mend matters, as it merely substitutes a commonplace for a somewhat extravagant metaphor. The best reading is probably that suggested by my friend, Dr. Charles Badham-to substitute " tuum for "deum," and insert a comma after "genus," applying it to the "bona mater"-the " common mother" of Shakspeare's Timon,

Whose womb immeasurable, and infinite birth,
Teems and feeds all.

The passage might then be translated thus:

Hail, heroes of that blissful time, the birth

Of the all-teeming parent, bounteous Earth!