II.
Nor did Musæus, Luna's heav'nly child,
And high-priest of the Graces, leave unsung
The fair Antiope, in accents wild,
As fell th' impassion'd language from his tongue:
Who woo'd of many suitors, at the shrine
Of mystic Ceres, by Eleusis' brow,
Chanted the high response in strains divine,—
And oped the secret springs,—and taught to know
The heav'n-drawn truths, in holy rapture lost.
But nought avail'd her zeal;—in evil hour,
Theme of the lyre below, her hopes were cross'd:
Death cropp'd the stalk, that bore so fair a flow'r.
III.
I tell thee too, that the Bœotian bard,
Sage Hesiod, quitted the Cumæan shore,
A wand'rer not unwilling,—afterward
In Heliconian Ascra seen to soar,
Deathless upon the mighty wings of fame.
'Twas there he woo'd Eœa, peerless maid,—
And strove to achieve her love,—and with her name
Prefaced his verse, with hallow'd lore inlaid.
IV.
Enravish'd Homer, ward of Fate from Jove,
Prince of melodious numbers, toil'd his way
To barren Ithaca,—and tuned, for love
Of chaste Penelope, the am'rous lay;
Forgot his native land, and bade adieu
To wide Ionia, for the island drear,
And wail'd Icarius' house, and Sparta too,
And dropp'd himself the sympathetic tear.
V.
Mimnermus, school'd in hardship, who first taught
To breathe soft airs of elegiac song,
Fair Nanno ask'd, and had; and often sought,
As by her side he blithely trudged along,
