To save our children :-fight ye side by side,
And serried close, ye men of youthful pride,
Disdaining fear, and deeming light the cost
Of life itself in glorious battle lost.

Leave not our sires to stem the unequal fight, Whose limbs are nerved no more with buoyant might;

Nor lagging backward, let the younger breast
Permit the man of age, a sight unbless'd,

To welter in the combat's foremost thrust,

His hoary head dishevell❜d in the dust,
And venerable bosom bleeding bare.

But youth's fair form, though fallen, is ever fair, And beautiful in death the boy appears, The hero boy, that dies in blooming years: In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears, More sacred than in life, and lovelier far, For having perish'd in the front of war.

SPECIMENS

OF

TRANSLATION FROM MEDEA.

Σκαιους δε λεγων, κουδέν τι σοφους
Τους προσθε βροτους ουκ αν αμάρτοις.
Medea, v. 194, p. 33, Glasg. edit.

TELL me, ye bards, whose skill sublime
First charm'd the ear of youthful Time,
With numbers wrapt in heavenly fire,
Who bade delighted Echo swell
The trembling transports of the lyre,
The murmur of the shell-
Why to the burst of Joy alone
Accords sweet Music's soothing tone?
Why can no bard, with magic strain,
In slumbers steep the heart of pain?
While varied tones obey your sweep,
The mild, the plaintive, and the deep,
Bends not despairing Grief to hear
Your golden lute, with ravish'd ear?

Has all your art no power to bind
The fiercer pangs that shake the mind,
And lull the wrath at whose command
Murder bares her gory hand?

When flush'd with joy, the rosy throng
Weave the light dance, ye swell the song!
Cease, ye vain warblers! cease to charm
The breast with other raptures warm!
Cease! till your hand with magic strain
In slumbers steep the heart of pain!

14

SPEECH OF THE CHORUS,

IN THE SAME TRAGEDY,

TO DISSUADE MEDEA FROM HER PURPOSE OF PUTTING HER CHILDREN TO DEATH, AND FLEEING FOR PROTECTION

TO ATHENS.

O HAGGARD queen! to Athens dost thou guide
Thy glowing chariot, steep'd in kindred gore;
Or seek to hide thy foul infanticide

Where Peace and Mercy dwell for evermore?

The land where Truth, pure, precious, and sublime, Woos the deep silence of sequester'd bowers, And warriors, matchless since the first of time, Rear their bright banners o'er unconquer'd towers!

Where joyous youth, to Music's mellow strain, Twines in the dance with nymphs for ever fair, While Spring eternal on the lilied plain,

Waves amber radiance through the fields of air!

The tuneful Nine (so sacred legends tell)

First waked their heavenly lyre these scenes

among ;

Still in your greenwood bowers they love to dwell; Still in your vales they swell the choral song!

But there the tuneful, chaste, Pierian fair,

The guardian nymphs of green Parnassus, now Sprung from Harmonia, while her graceful hair Waved in bright auburn o'er her polished brow!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Where silent vales, and glades of green array, The murmuring wreaths of cool Cephisus lave, There, as the Muse hath sung, at noon of day,

The Queen of Beauty bow'd to taste the wave;

And blest the stream, and breathed across the land The soft sweet gale that fans yon summer bowers; And there the sister Loves, a smiling band,

Crown'd with the fragrant wreaths of rosy flowers!

"And go," she cries, " in yonder valleys rove, With Beauty's torch the solemn scenes illume; Wake in each eye the radiant light of Love,

Breathe on each cheek young Passion's tender bloom!

"Entwine, with myrtle chains, your soft control, To sway the hearts of Freedom's darling kind! With glowing charms enrapture Wisdom's soul, And mould to grace ethereal Virtue's mind."

G