HYMN TO VENUS.

FROM SAPPHO.

O VENUS, beauty of the skies,

To whom a thousand temples rise,
Gaily false in gentle smiles,

Full of love-perplexing wiles,
O, goddess, from my heart remove
The wasting cares and pains of love.

If ever thou hast kindly heard
A song in soft distress preferr'd,
Propitious to my tuneful vow

O gentle goddess, hear me now:
Descend, thou bright, immortal guest
In all thy radiant charms confest.

Thou once didst leave almighty Jove,
And all the golden roofs above:
The car thy wanton sparrows drew,
Hovering in air they lightly flew ;
As to my bower they wing'd their way
I saw their quivering pinions play.

The birds dismiss'd, while you remain,
Bore back their empty car again:

Then you, with looks divinely mild,
In every heavenly feature smil'd,
And ask'd what new complaints I made,
And why I call'd you to my aid ?—
What frenzy in my bosom raged
And by what care to be assuaged ;-
What gentle youth I would allure,
Whom in my artful toils secure ;—
"Who does thy tender heart subdue
"Tell me, my Sappho, tell me who?

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Though now he shun thy longing arms,

"He soon shall court thy slighted charms; Though now thy offerings he despise,

"He soon to thee shall sacrifice;

"Tho' now he freeze, he soon shall burn, "And be thy victim in his turn."

Celestial visitant, once more
Thy needful presence I implore!
In pity come and ease my grief,
Bring my distemper'd soul relief:
Favour thy suppliant's hidden fires,
And give me all my heart desires.

Poems,

Griginal and Selected.

CUPID AND PSYCHE.

WEARIED with toying, Love had sunk to sleep
Upon a bank of moss, while o'er him sprung,
Spontaneous, a canopy of flowers;

Poppies of scarlet dye, whose nodding heads
Upon his eyelids shed their drowsy balm :
And intertwined with these the paler rose,
Whose scented blossoms bathed in lucid dew
Wooed the soft breeze to loiter as it pass'd,
And borrow fragrant coolness.—Near him lay
His bow and quiver, fraught with fatal shafts,
Winged with hope, but dipt in tears of woe.
While thus he slept, his lovely Psyche came,
So lightly treading, that her snowy foot

Brush'd not the dew-drop from the cowslip's bell.
Awhile she stood to gaze, her heavenly face
Beaming ætherial love; then kneeling down,
So gently that her amber-scented breath
Stirr'd not the gossamer, she culled a dart,
And on its point impress'd a balmy kiss