With care I tend my weary guest, His glossy curls, his azure wing, Which droop with nightly showers, I wring; ་ I fear, relax'd with midnight dews, << The strings their former aid refuse:>> My bow can still impel the shaft; « 'Tis firmly fix'd, thy sighs reveal it, Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel it? » FRAGMENTS OF SCHOOL EXERCISES, FROM THE PROMETHEUS VINCTUS OF OESCHYLUS. GREAT Jove! to whose almighty throne My voice shall raise no impious strain 'Gainst him who rules the sky and azure main. How different now thy joyless fate, Nor yet thy doom was fix'd, nor Jove relentless frown'd. Harrow, Dec. 1, 1804. THE EPISODE OF NISUS AND EURYALUS. A PARAPHRASE FROM THE ÆNEID, LIB. IX. NISUS, the guardian of the portal, stood, Eager to gild his arms with hostile blood; No lovelier mien adorn'd the ranks of Troy, These burn with one pure flame of gen❜rous love, Friendship and glory form their joint reward, " « What God! » exclaim'd the first, « instils this fire? Or, in itself a God, what great desire? My lab'ring soul, with anxious thought opprest, « Abhors this station of inglorious rest; "The love of fame with this can ill accord, ■ Be't mine, to seek for glory with my sword. "See'st thou yon camp, with torches twinkling dim, "Where drunken slumbers wrap each lazy limb? ་ Where confidence and ease the watch disdain, "And drowsy Silence holds her sable reign? "Then hear my thought :-In deep and sullen grief, . Our troops and leaders mourn their absent chief; Now could the gifts and promis'd prize be thine, (The deed, the danger, and the fame be mine;) "Were this decreed ;-beneath yon rising mound, Methinks, an easy path, perchance, were found, "Which past, I speed my way to Pallas' walls, And lead Eneas from Evander's halls. » With equal ardour fired, and warlike joy, His glowing friend address'd the Dardan boy : These deeds, my Nisus, shalt thou dare alone? «Must all the fame, the peril, be thine own? "Am I by thee despis'd, and left afar, « As one unfit to share the toils of war? « Not thus, his son, the « I track'd Æneas through the walks of fate; «Here is a soul with hope immortal burns, « And life, ignoble life, for Glory spurns; K ་ Fame, fame, is cheaply earn'd by fleeting breath, «The price of honour is the sleep of death. » Then Nisus,«Calm thy bosom's fond alarms, Thy heart beats fiercely to the din of arms; «More dear thy worth and valour than my own, « I swear by him who fills Olympus' throne! So may I triumph, as I speak the truth, «And clasp again the comrade of my youth. ་་ But should I fall, and he who dares advance Through hostile legions, must abide by chance; "If some Rutulian arm, with adverse blow, Should lay the friend who ever lov'd thee low; preserve, Thy budding years a lengthen'd term deserve; When humbled in the dust, let some one be, « Whose gentle eyes will shed one tear for me; « Whose manly arm may snatch me back by force, « Or wealth redeem from foes my captive corse: «Or, if my docsi- ་་ " ས « uny wese last deny, If, in the spoiler's power, my ashes lie; To mark thy love, and signalize my doom. Why should thy doating, wretched mother weep Who, for thy sake, the tempest's fury dar'd, Who, for thy sake, war's deadly peril shar'd; Who brav'd what woman never brav'd before, « In vain you damp the ardour of my soul, »> Hence, let us haste, their brother guards arose, Reus'd by their call, nor court again repose; The pair, buoy'd up on Hope's exulting wing, With patience,» thus Hyrtacides began, « Attend, nor judge, from youth, our humble plan; "Where yonder beacons half expiring beam, << Our slumbering foes of future conquest dream, « Nor heed, that we a secret path have trac'd, ㄍ Between the Ocean, and the portal plac'd : Beneath the covert of the blackening smoke, << Whose shade, securely, our design will cloak. If you, ye Chiefs, and Fortune will allow, « We'll bend our course to yonder mountain's brow, « Where Pallas' walls, at distance, meet the sight, « Seen o'er the glade, when not obscur❜d by night; . Then shall Æneas in his pride return, « While hostile matrons raise their offspring's urn; « And Latian spoils, and purpl'd heaps of dead, |