No More Learning

(234)

"Sweet pleasing Sleep! (Saturnia thus began)
Who spread'st thy empire o'er each god and man;
If e'er obsequious to thy Juno's will,
O power of slumbers! hear, and favour still.
Shed thy soft dews on Jove's immortal eyes,
While sunk in love's entrancing joys he lies.
A splendid footstool, and a throne, that shine
With gold unfading, Somnus, shall be thine;
The work of Vulcan; to indulge thy ease,
When wine and feasts thy golden humours please. "

"Imperial dame (the balmy power replies),
Great Saturn's heir, and empress of the skies!
O'er other gods I spread my easy chain;
The sire of all, old Ocean, owns my reign.
And his hush'd waves lie silent on the main.
But how, unbidden, shall I dare to steep
Jove's awful temples in the dew of sleep?
Long since, too venturous, at thy bold command,
On those eternal lids I laid my hand;
What time, deserting Ilion's wasted plain,
His conquering son, Alcides, plough'd the main.
When lo! the deeps arise, the tempests roar,
And drive the hero to the Coan shore:
Great Jove, awaking, shook the blest abodes
With rising wrath, and tumbled gods on gods;
Me chief he sought, and from the realms on high
Had hurl'd indignant to the nether sky,
But gentle Night, to whom I fled for aid,
(The friend of earth and heaven,) her wings display'd;
Impower'd the wrath of gods and men to tame,
Even Jove revered the venerable dame. "

"Vain are thy fears (the queen of heaven replies,
And, speaking, rolls her large majestic eyes);
Think'st thou that Troy has Jove's high favour won,
Like great Alcides, his all-conquering son?
Hear, and obey the mistress of the skies,
Nor for the deed expect a vulgar prize;
For know, thy loved-one shall be ever thine,
The youngest Grace, Pasithae the divine. "(235)

"Swear then (he said) by those tremendous floods
That roar through hell, and bind the invoking gods:
Let the great parent earth one hand sustain,
And stretch the other o'er the sacred main:
Call the black Titans, that with Chronos dwell,
To hear and witness from the depths of hell;
That she, my loved-one, shall be ever mine,
The youngest Grace, Pasithae the divine.
"

The queen assents, and from the infernal bowers
Invokes the sable subtartarean powers,
And those who rule the inviolable floods,
Whom mortals name the dread Titanian gods.

[Illustration: SLEEP ESCAPING FROM THE WRATH OF JUPITER. ]

SLEEP ESCAPING FROM THE WRATH OF JUPITER.


Then swift as wind, o'er Lemnos' smoky isle
They wing their way, and Imbrus' sea-beat soil;
Through air, unseen, involved in darkness glide,
And light on Lectos, on the point of Ide:
(Mother of savages, whose echoing hills
Are heard resounding with a hundred rills:)
Fair Ida trembles underneath the god;
Hush'd are her mountains, and her forests nod.
There on a fir, whose spiry branches rise
To join its summit to the neighbouring skies;
Dark in embowering shade, conceal'd from sight,
Sat Sleep, in likeness of the bird of night.
(Chalcis his name by those of heavenly birth,
But call'd Cymindis by the race of earth. )

To Ida's top successful Juno flies;
Great Jove surveys her with desiring eyes:
The god, whose lightning sets the heavens on fire,
Through all his bosom feels the fierce desire;
Fierce as when first by stealth he seized her charms,
Mix'd with her soul, and melted in her arms:
Fix'd on her eyes he fed his eager look,
Then press'd her hand, and thus with transport spoke:

"Why comes my goddess from the ethereal sky,
And not her steeds and flaming chariot nigh? "

Then she--"I haste to those remote abodes
Where the great parents of the deathless gods,
The reverend Ocean and gray Tethys, reign,
On the last limits of the land and main.
I visit these, to whose indulgent cares
I owe the nursing of my tender years:
For strife, I hear, has made that union cease
Which held so long that ancient pair in peace.
The steeds, prepared my chariot to convey
O'er earth and seas, and through the aerial way,
Wait under Ide: of thy superior power
To ask consent, I leave the Olympian bower;
Nor seek, unknown to thee, the sacred cells
Deep under seas, where hoary Ocean dwells. "

"For that (said Jove) suffice another day!
But eager love denies the least delay.
Let softer cares the present hour employ,
And be these moments sacred all to joy.
Ne'er did my soul so strong a passion prove,
Or for an earthly, or a heavenly love:
Not when I press'd Ixion's matchless dame,
Whence rose Pirithous like the gods in fame:
Not when fair Danae felt the shower of gold
Stream into life, whence Perseus brave and bold.
Not thus I burn'd for either Theban dame:
(Bacchus from this, from that Alcides came:)
Nor Phoenix' daughter, beautiful and young,
Whence godlike Rhadamanth and Minos sprung. (236)
Not thus I burn'd for fair Latona's face,
Nor comelier Ceres' more majestic grace.