No More Learning

Here, as she hastens, on the hopeless boy
She turns her face, all bath'd in smiles of joy;
Then, sinking down, her eyes suffused with love
Glowing on his, one moment lost reprove.
Here was no rival, all he wish'd his own;
Lock'd in her arms soft sinks the stripling down.
Ah, what soft murmurs panting thro' the bowers
Sigh'd to the raptures of the paramours!
The wishful sigh, and melting smile conspire,
Devouring kisses fan the fiercer fire;
Sweet violence, with dearest grace, assails,
Soft o'er the purpos'd frown the smile prevails,
The purpos'd frown betrays its own deceit,
In well-pleas'd laughter ends the rising threat;
The coy delay glides off in yielding love,
And transport murmurs thro' the sacred grove.
The joy of pleasing adds its sacred zest,
And all is love, embracing and embraced.

The golden morn beheld the scenes of joy;
Nor, sultry noon, mayst thou the bowers annoy;
The sultry noon-beam shines the lover's aid,
And sends him glowing to the secret shade.
O'er evr'y shade, and ev'ry nuptial bower
The love-sick strain the virgin turtles pour;
For nuptial faith and holy rites combin'd,
The Lusian heroes and the nymphs conjoin'd.
With flow'ry wreaths, and laurel chaplets, bound
With ductile gold, the nymphs the heroes crown'd:
By ev'ry spousal holy ritual tied,
No chance, they vow, shall e'er their hands divide,
In life, in death, attendant as their fame;
Such was the oath of ocean's sov'reign dame:
The dame (from heav'n and holy Vesta sprung,
For ever beauteous and for ever young),
Enraptur'd, views the chief whose deathless name
The wond'ring world and conquer'd seas proclaim.
With stately pomp she holds the hero's hand,
And gives her empire to his dread command,
By spousal ties confirm'd; nor pass'd untold
What Fate's unalter'd page had will'd of old:
The world's vast globe in radiant sphere she show'd,
The shores immense, and seas unknown, unplough'd;
The seas, the shores, due to the Lusian keel
And Lusian sword, she hastens to reveal.
The glorious leader by the hand she takes,
And, dim below, the flow'ry bower forsakes.
High on a mountain's starry top divine
Her palace walls of living crystal shine;
Of gold and crystal blaze the lofty towers;
Here, bath'd in joy, they pass the blissful hours:
Engulf'd in tides on tides of joy, the day
On downy pinions glides unknown away.
While thus the sov'reigns in the palace reign,
Like transport riots o'er the humbler plain,
Where each, in gen'rous triumph o'er his peers,
His lovely bride to ev'ry bride prefers.

"Hence, ye profane! "[587]--the song melodious rose,
By mildest zephyrs wafted through the boughs,
Unseen the warblers of the holy strain--
"Far from these sacred bowers, ye lewd profane!
Hence each unhallow'd eye, each vulgar ear;
Chaste and divine are all the raptures here.
The nymphs of ocean, and the ocean's queen,
The isle angelic, ev'ry raptur'd scene,
The charms of honour and its meed confess,
These are the raptures, these the wedded bliss:
The glorious triumph and the laurel crown,
The ever blossom'd palms of fair renown,
By time unwither'd, and untaught to cloy;
These are the transports of the Isle of Joy.
Such was Olympus and the bright abodes;
Renown was heav'n, and heroes were the gods.
Thus, ancient times, to virtue ever just,
To arts and valour rear'd the worshipp'd bust.
High, steep, and rugged, painful to be trod,
With toils on toils immense is virtue's road;
But smooth at last the walks umbrageous smile,
Smooth as our lawns, and cheerful as our isle.
Up the rough road Alcides, Hermes, strove,
All men like you, Apollo, Mars, and Jove:
Like you to bless mankind Minerva toil'd;
Diana bound the tyrants of the wild;
O'er the waste desert Bacchus spread the vine;
And Ceres taught the harvest-field to shine.
Fame rear'd her trumpet; to the blest abodes
She rais'd, and hail'd them gods, and sprung of gods.

"The love of fame, by heav'n's own hand impress'd,
The first, and noblest passion of the breast,
May yet mislead. --Oh guard, ye hero train,
No harlot robes of honours false and vain,
No tinsel yours, be yours all native gold,
Well-earn'd each honour, each respect you hold:
To your lov'd king return a guardian band,
Return the guardians of your native land;
To tyrant power be dreadful; from the jaws
Of fierce oppression guard the peasant's cause.
If youthful fury pant for shining arms,
Spread o'er the eastern world the dread alarms;[588]
There bends the Saracen the hostile bow,
The Saracen thy faith, thy nation's foe;
There from his cruel gripe tear empire's reins,
And break his tyrant-sceptre o'er his chains.
On adamantine pillars thus shall stand
The throne, the glory of your native land;
And Lusian heroes, an immortal line,
Shall ever with us share our isle divine. "




DISSERTATION

ON THE

FICTION OF THE ISLAND OF VENUS.


From the earliest ages, and in the most distant nations, palaces,
forests and gardens, have been the favourite themes of poets. And
though, as in Homer's island of Rhadamanthus, the description is
sometimes only cursory; at other times they have lavished all their
powers, and have vied with each other in adorning their edifices and
landscapes. The gardens of Alcinous in the Odyssey, and Elysium in the
AEneid, have excited the ambition of many imitators. Many instances of
these occur in the later writers. These subjects, however, it must be
owned, are so natural to the genius of poetry, that it is scarcely fair
to attribute to an imitation of the classics, the innumerable
descriptions of this kind which abound in the old romances.