Would needs with lightning, hills, and mountains arm Themselves, to work each other's deadly harm;

Sacred to Cybele, the whispering pine

Loves the wild grottos where the white cliffs shine;
Here lowers the cypress, preacher to the wise,
Less'ning from earth her spiral honours rise:
Till as a spearpoint rear'd, the topmost spray,
Points to the Eden of eternal day.

Here round her fostering elm the smiling vine,
In fond embraces gives her arms to twine :
The numerous clusters pendant from the boughs,
The greeen here glistens, here the purple glows:
For here the genial seasons of the year
Dance hand in hand-no place for winter here :
His grisly visage from the shore expell'd,
United sway the smiling seasons held.
Around the swelling fruits of deep'ning red,
Their snowy hues the fragrant blossoms spread:
Between the bursting buds of lucid green,
The apple's ripe vermilion blush is seen;
For here each gift Pomona's hand bestows,
In cultur'd garden free-uncultur'd flows,
The flavour sweeter and the hue more fair,
Than e'er was foster'd by the hand of care;
The cherry here, in shining crimson glows;
And stain'd with lover's blood, in pendant rows,
The bending boughs the mulberry o'erload,
The bending boughs caress by Zephyr's nod ;
The generous peach that strengthens in exile,
Far from his native earth, the Persian soil,
The velvet peach of softest glossy blue,
Hangs by the pomegranate of orange hue,
Whose open heart a brighter red displays,
Than that which sparkles in the ruby's blaze,
Here trembling with their weight, the branches bear
Delicious as profuse, the tapering pear:
For thee, fair fruit, the songsters of the grove,
With hungry bills from bower to arbour rove,
Ah! If ambitious, thou wilt own the care,
To grace the feast of heroes and the fair,

And hurling forth this ammunition missile,
Made one another's jumping block-heads whistle,

Soft let the leaves with graceful umbrage hide,
The green-ting'd orange of the mellow side;
A thousand flowers of white and glowing red,
Far o'er the shadowy vale their carpets spread
Of fairer tapestry and richer bloom,

⚫ Than ever glow'd in Persia's boasted loom;
As glittering rainbows o'er the verdure thrown,
O'er every woodland walk the embroidery shone;
Here o'er the wat'ry mirror's lucid bed,
Narcissus self-enamour'd hangs his head,
And here, bedew'd with love's celestial tears,
The love-mark'd flower of slain Adonis rears
Its purple head, prophetic of the reign,
When lost Adonis shall revive again,
At strife appears the lawn and purpled skies,
Which from each other stole the beauteous dyes;
The lawn in all Aurora's lustre glows,
Aurora steals the blushes of the rose :
The rose displays the blushes that adorn
The spotless virgin on the nuptial morn.
Zephyr and Flora, emulous, conspire

To breathe the graces o'er the field's attire ;
The one gives healthy freshness to the hue,
Fairer than e'er creative fancy drew :
Pale as the hopeless love-sick maid they die ;
The modest violet from the curious eye,
The modest violet turns her gentle head,
And by the thorn weeps o'er her lovely bed;
Bending beneath the tears of pearly dawn,
The snow-white lily glitters o'er the lawn;
Low from the bough reclines the damask rose,
And o'er the lily's milk-white bosom glows:
Fresh in the dew, far o'er the painted dales,
Each fragrant herb her sweetest scent exhales.
The hyacinth betrays the doleful Ai,
And calls the tribute of Apollo's sigh;
Still on its bloom the mournful flowers retain
The lovely blue that died the stripling's vein.

And roughen'd up the once smooth face of nature. Hence see Vesuvius with his boiling crater:

Pomona, fir'd with rival envy, views

The glaring pride of Flora's darting hues,
Where Flora bids the purple Iris spread,
She hangs the wielding blossom white and red:
Where wild thyme purples, where the daisy snows,
The curling slopes the melon's pride she throws ;
Where by the stream the lily of the vale,
Primrose and cowslip meek perfume the gale,
Beneath the lily and the cowslip's bell,
The scarlet strawberries luxuriant swell :
Nor these alone the teeming Eden yields,
Each harmless beastile crops the flowery field;
And birds of every note and every wing,
Their loves responsive through the branches sing,
In sweet vibrations thrilling o'er the skies,
High pois'd in air the lark his warbling tries;
The swan slow sailing o'er the crystal lake,
Tunes his melodious note from every brake:
The glowing strain the nightingale returns,
And in the bowers of love the turtle mourns:
Pleas'd to behold, his branching horns appear,
O'er the bright fountain bends the fearless deer:
The hare starts trembling from the thicket shade,
And swiftly circling crosses oft the glade :
Where from the rocks the bubbling founts distil,
The milk-white lambs come bleating down the hill
The dappled heifer seeks the vales below,
And from the thicket springs the bounding roe;
To his lov'd nest, on fondly fluttering wings,
In chirping bill the little songster brings
The food, untasted transport fills his breast;

'Tis Nature's touches, instinct's heaven-like feast.
Thus bower and lawn were deck'd with Eden's flow'rs.
And song and joy imparadis'd the hours.
While o'er the beauteous isle the lovely fair,
Stray thro' the distant glades devoid of care,
From lonely valley and from mountain's grove,
The lovely nymphs renew the strains of love.

Them sheets of lightning must have aim'd two d--d blows, That lighted his and Ætna's flaming flambeaux:

Here from the bowers that crown the plaintive rill,
The solemn harp's melodious warblings thrill:
Here from the shadows of the upland grot,
The mellow lute renews the swelling note.
As fair Diana and her virgin train,

Some gaily ramble o'er the flowery plain,
In feign'd pursuit of hare or bounding roe,.
Their graceful mien and beauteous limbs to show ;
Now seeming careless, fearful now and coy,
So taught the Goddess of unutter'd joy;
And gliding thro' the distant glades, display
Each limb, each movement, naked as the day :
Some, light with glee, in careless freedom take
Their playful revels in the crystal lake;
One trembling stands no deeper than the knee,
To plunge reluctant, while in sportful glee,
Another sudden o'er her laves the tide,
In pearly drops, the wishful waters glide;
Reluctant dropping from her breasts of snow,
Beneath the wave another seems to glow;
The amorous waves her bosom fondly kiss'd,
And rose and fell, as panting on her breast ;
Another swims along with graceful pride,
Her silver arms the glistening waves divide,
Her shining sides the fondling waters lave,
Her glowing cheeks are brighten'd by the wave;
Her hair of mildest yellow, flows from side
To side-as o'er it plays the wanton tide :
And careless as she turns her thighs of snow,
Their tapering rounds in deeper lustre show.

The Bower of Bliss.-SPENCER.

THENCE passing forth, they shortly do arrive
Whereat the Bower of Bliss was situate;
A place pick'd out by choice of best alive,
That nature's work by art can imitate ;

So did that streak electric mean a home-blow, tho'
That lighted up the torch of burning Strombolo :

In which whatever in this worldly state
Is sweet and pleasing unto living sense,
Or what may daintiest fantasie aggrate,

Was poured forth with plentiful dispense,
And made there to abound with lavish affluence.

Goodly it was enclosed round about,
As well their enter'd guests to keep within,
As those unruly beasts to hold without;
Yet was the fence thereof but weak and thin:
Nought fear'd their force that sortilage to win,
But wisdom's powre and temperance's might,
By which the mightiest things efforced bin :
And eke the gate was wrought of substance light,
Rather for pleasure than for battery or fight.

It framed was of pretious yvory,
That seem'd a work of admirable wit;
And therein all the famous historie
Of Jason and Medea was ywrit;

Her mighty charmes, her furious loving fit,
His goodly conquest of the golden fleece,
His falsed faith, and love to lightly flit,

The wondred Argo, which invent❜rous peece
First thro' the Euxian seas bore all the flow'r of Greece.

Ye might have seen the frothy billowes fry
Under the ship, as thorough them she went,
That seemed waves were into yvory,

Or yvory into the waves were sent :

And other where the snowy substance sprent,
With vermell-like the boyes bloud therein shed,
A piteous spectacle did represent;

And otherwhiles with gold besprinkeled,

It seem'd th' enchanted flame which did Crüesa wed.

All this and more might in this goodly gate
Be read; that ever open stood to all