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IDEAL LIKENESSES.
Ariadne.
A swan but happy looking face, the mouth
Seem’d a rose Opening to the pleasant south,
Giving sweets, stealing sunshine; it was gay
As it could smile e’en sorrow’s self away;
The eurls were all thrown back as not allow'd
To shed o’er that oung brow, the slizhtest cloud;
head’s height, they downward roll’d
A sunny stream, floating with waves of gold;
A wreath of vine-leaves bound it, but the wind
Kiss’d the stra ringlets it had not confined.
Too beautiful for earth, the sky had 'ren
Her eye and cheek the colouring of eaven,
Blue, the clear blue upon an A ril sky,
Red, the first red the morning blushes dye:
Her downcast look at times wore pensivcness,
But tender more than sorrowful, as less
She had known than dreamed woe, as her chief grief
Had been a fading flower, a falling leaf.
Her song was as the red wine sparkling up,
Gain o’erflowing from a festal cup.
Her step was li ht as wont to more along
To the gay cytn and the choral song;
Her lau h was lad as one who rather chose
To dwc upon ifc’s pleasures, than life’s woes.
And this was she whom Theseus left to pine,
And mingle with her salt tears the salt brine ;
Her face was all too bright for tears, she gave
Sighs to the wind, and weeping to the wave,
And left a lesson unto after-times,
Too little dwelt upon in minstrel rhymes,
A lesson how inconstancy should be
Repaid again by like inconstancy.
