AMONGST these leaves she made a Butterfly,
With excellent device and wondrous sleight,
Fluttering among the olives wantonly,
That seemed to live, so like it was in sight;
The velvet nap which on his wings doth lie,
The silken down with which his back is dight,
His broad outstretchéd horns, his hairy thighs,
His glorious colors, and his glistening eyes.*
Which when Arachne saw, as overlaid
And mastered with workmanship so rare,
She stood astonied long, ne aught gainsaid;
And with fast fixéd eyes on her did stare,
And by her silence, sign of one dismayed,
The victory did yield her as her share:
Yet did she inly fret and felly burn,
And all her blood to poisonous rancor turn.
* Sir James Mackintosh says of this, "Do you think that even a Chinese could paint the gay colors of a butterfly with more minute exactness than the following lines - The velvet nap, &c.'?" Life, Vol. ii. 246.
UPON A LADY'S EMBROIDERY.
ARACHNE once, as poets tell,
A goddess at her art defied,
And soon the daring mortal fell
The hapless victim of her pride.
O, then beware Arachne's fate;
Be prudent, Chloe, and submit,
For you'll most surely meet her hate,
Who rival both her art and wit.
THE Young Dione, nursed beneath the waves,
And rocked by Nereids in their coral caves,
Charmed the blue sisterhood with playful wiles,
Lisped her sweet tones, and tried her tender smiles;
Then on her beryl throne, by Tritons borne,
Bright rose the goddess, like the star of morn,
When with soft fires the milky dawn he leads,
And wakes to light and love the laughing meads.
The immortal form enamoured Nature hailed,
And beauty blazed, to heaven and earth revealed.
THE VENUS DE' MEDICI.
So stands the statue that enchants the world;
So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,
The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.
THERE too the goddess loves in stone, and fills
The air around with beauty; we inhale
Th' ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
Part of its immortality; the veil
Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale
We stand, and in that form and face behold
What mind can make, when Nature's self would
And to the fond idolaters of old
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould.
BLOOD, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan shep
STRETCHED on the ground the wounded lover lies; Weep, queen of beauty! for he bleeds - he dies! Why didst thou, venturous, the wild chase explore, From his dark den to rouse the shaggy boar? Adonis hears not: life's last drops fall slow,
In streams of purple, down those limbs of snow;
From his pale cheek the fading roses fly,
And dewy mists obscure that radiant
eye.
Kiss, kiss those fading lips ere chilled in death;
With soothing fondness stay the fleeting breath.
'Tis vain! ah! give thy soothing fondness o'er;
Adonis feels thy warm caress no more.
His faithful dogs bewail their master slain,
And mourning wood nymphs pour the plaintive strain.
Haste! fill with flowers, with rosy wreaths, his bed;
Strew the fresh flowers o'er loved Adonis dead;
Round his pale corpse each breathing perfume strew;
Let weeping myrtles pour their balmy dew,
While Venus grieves, and Cupids round deplore,
And mourn her beauty and her love, no more.
BEDS of hyacinth and roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft, and on the ground
Sadly sits th' Assyrian queen, &c.
WEEPING FOR ADONIS.
[Adonis was the name of a river in Syria, on the banks of which the death of the favorite of Venus was annually commemorated. Milton alludes to this mourning for Adonis, whom he calls by the Syrian appellation Thammuz.]
WHOSE annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate,
In amorous ditties, all a summer's day;
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded.
AND by his mother stood an infant Love,
With wings unfledged; his eyes were banded o'er,
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