I those charms alone can prize DR. JOHNSON. THE BUTTERFLY'S BALL. COME take up your hats, and away let us haste So said little Robert, and, pacing along, Saw the children of earth, and the tenants of air, And there was the Gnat and the Dragon-fly too, With all their relations, green, orange, and blue. And there came the Moth, with his plumage of down, And the Hornet in jacket of yellow and brown; Who with him the Wasp, his companion, did bring, And the Snail, with his horns peeping out of his shell, The viands were various, to each of their taste, And the Squirrel, well pleased such diversions to see, From one branch to another, his cobwebs he slung, But, just in the middle,-Oh! shocking to tell,- Yet he touch'd not the ground, but with talons outspread, Hung suspended in air, at the end of a thread. Then the Grasshopper came with a jerk and a spring, He took but three leaps, and was soon out of sight, But they all laugh'd so loud that he pull'd in his head, And went in his own little chamber to bed. Then, as evening gave way to the shadows of night, Their watchman, the Glow-worm, came out with a light. Then home let us hasten, while yet we can see, ROSCOE. LAMENTATION FOR THE DEATH OF CELIN. AT the gate of old Granada, when all its bolts are barr'd, At twilight, at the Vega gate, there is a trampling heard; There is a trampling heard, as of horses treading slow, And a weeping voice of women, and a heavy sound of woe. "What tower is fall'n, what star is set, what chief come these bewailing?" "A tower is fall'n, a star is set. Alas! alas, for Celin!" Three times they knock, three times they cry, and wide the doors they throw: Dejectedly they enter, and mournfully they go: In gloomy lines they mustering stand beneath the hollow porch, Each horseman grasping in his hand a black and flaming torch; Wet is each eye as they go by, and all around is wailing, For all have heard the misery. "Alas! alas, for Celin!" Him, yesterday, a Moor did slay, of Bencerraje's blood, 'Twas at the solemn jousting; around the nobles stood; The nobles of the land were there, and the ladies bright and fair Look'd from their latticed windows, the haughty sight to share ; But now the nobles all lament, the ladies are be wailing, For he was Granada's darling knight. for Celin!" 'Alas! alas, Before him ride his vassals, in order two by two, With ashes on their turbans spread, most pitiful to view; Behind him his four sisters, each wrapt in sable veil, Between the tambour's dismal strokes take up their doleful tale; When stops the muffled drum, ye hear their brotherless bewailing, And all the people, far and near, cry,-"Alas! alas, for Celin !" O, lovely lies he on the bier above the purple pall, The flower of all Granada's youth, the loveliest of them all; His dark, dark eyes are closed, and his rosy lip is pale, The crust of blood lies black and dim upon his burnish'd mail, And evermore the hoarse tambour breaks in upon their wailing, Its sound is like no earthly sound,-"Alas! alas, for Celin !" The Moorish maid at the lattice stands, the Moor stands at his door, One maid is wringing of her hands, and one is weeping sore: Down to the dust men bow their heads, and ashes black they strew, Upon their broider'd garments of crimson, green and blue Before each gate the bier stands stil, then bursts the loud bewailing, From door and lattice, high and low-"Alas! alas, for Celin!" An old, old woman cometh forth, when she hears the people cry; Her hair is white as silver, like horn her glazed eye. "Twas she that nursed him at her breast, that nursed him long ago; She knows not whom they all lament, but soon she well shall know With one deep shriek she through doth break, when her ears receive their wailing "Let me kiss my Celin ere I die-Alas! alas, for Celin !" LOCKHEART. ODE. O MELANCHOLY Moon, Queen of the midnight, though thou palest away Far in the dusky west, to vanish soon Under the hills that catch thy waning ray, Still art thou beautiful beyond all spheres, The friend of grief, and confidant of tears. Mine earliest friend wert thou: My boyhood's passion was to stretch me under The locust tree, and, through the chequer'd bough, Wich thy far pathway in the clouds, and wonder At thy strange loveliness, and wish to be The nearest star to roam the heavens with thee. Youth grew; but as it came, And sadness with it, still, with joy, I stole To gaze, and dream, and breathe perchance the name That was the early music of my soul,- And manhood, though it bring Mine eyes from thy lone loveliness; still spring Would it were so; for earth Grows shadowy, and her fairest planets fail; |