E'en Socrates, whose moral mind
With truth enlighten'd all mankind,
When at Aspasia's side he sate,
Still found no end to love's debate;
For strong indeed must be that heart,
Where love finds no unguarded part.
Sage Aristippus by right rule
Of logic purged the Sophist's school,
Check'd folly in its headlong course,
And swept it down by reason's force;
'Till Venus aim'd the heart-felt blow,
And laid the mighty victor low.—Cumberland.
The same.
I.
Orpheus,—Œagrus' son,—thou know'st full well,—
The Thracian harper,—how with magic skill,
Inspired by love, he struck the chorded shell,
And made the shades obedient to his will,
As from the nether gloom to light he led
His love Agriope. He to Pluto's land,
Baleful and cheerless, region of the dead,
Sail'd far away,—and sought th' infernal strand,
Where Charon, gaunt and grim, his hollow bark
(Fraught with departed souls, an airy crowd)
Steers o'er the Stygian billow dun and dark,
And with a voice of thunder bellows loud
O'er the slow pool, that scarcely creeps along
Through sedge, and weedy ooze: but nathless he,
On the lone margent, pour'd his love-sick song,
And charm'd Hell's monsters with his minstrelsy.
Cocytus scowl'd,—but grinn'd a ghastly smile,
Albeit unused to the relenting mood:
Cerb'rus, three-mouth'd, stopp'd short,—and paused the while,
Low crouching, list'ning, (for the sounds were good)
Silent his throat of flame, his eyes of fire
Quench'd in ecstatic slumber, as he lay.
Thus Hell's stern rulers hearken'd to his lyre,
And gave the fair one back to upper day.
