TRANSLATION OF A GREEK ODE ON ASTRONOMY.
In jubilee their mystic dance begun;
When at thy leaping forth, O sun!
The morning started in affright,
Astonished at thy birth, her child of light.
Queen of the muses! mistress of the song!
For thou didst deign to leave the heavenly throng,
As earthward thou thy steps wert bending,
A went forth and harbingered thy way;
All ether laughed with thy descending.
Thou hadst wreathed thy hair with roses,
The flower that in the immortal bower
Its deathless bloom discloses.
Before thine awful mien, compell'd to shrink;
Fled ignorance abashed and all her brood;
Dragons, and hags of baleful breath,
Fierce dreams that wont to drink
The sepulchre's black blood;
Or on the wings of storms
Riding in fury forms
Shrieked to the mariner the shriek of death.
I boast, O goddess, to thy name
That I have raised the pile of fame!
Therefore to me be given
To roam the starry path of heaven,
To charioteer with wings on high
And to rein in the tempests of the sky.
Chariots of happy gods! fountains of light!
Ye angel-temples bright!
May I unblamed your flamy threshold tread ?
I leave earth's lowly scene;
I leave the moon serene,
The lovely queen of night;
I leave the wide domains
Beyond where Mars his fiercer light can fling,
And Jupiter's vast plains,
(The many-belted king;)
Even to the solitude where Saturn reigns.
Like some stern tyrant to just exile driven;
Dim seen the sullen power appears
In that cold solitude of heaven,
And slow he drags along
The mighty circle of long-lingering years.
Nor shalt thou escape my sight,
Who at the threshold of the sun-trod domes
Art trembling, youngest daughter of the night!
And you, ye fiery-tressed strangers, you
Comets who wander wide,
Will I along your pathless way pursue,
Whence bending I may view
The worlds whom elder suns have vivified.
For hope, with loveliest visions soothes my mind
That even in man, life's winged power,
When comes again the natal hour,
Shall on heaven-wandering feet
In undecaying youth,
Spring to the blessed seat;
Where round the fields of truth
The fiery essences for ever feed;
And o'er the ambrosial mead,
The breezes of serenity
Silent and soothing glide for ever by.
There priest of nature! dost thou shine
Newton! a king among the kings divine.
Whether with harmony's mild force,
He guides along its course
The axle of some beauteous star on high;
Or gazing in the spring
Ebullient with creative energy,
Feels his pure breast with rapturous joy possest, Inebriate in the holy ecstasy!
may not call thee mortal, then, my soul!
Immortal longings lift thee to the skies:
Love of thy native home inflames thee now,
With pious madness wise.
Know then thyself! expand thy wings divine!
Soon mingled with thy fathers thou shalt shine
A star amid the starry throng,
A god the gods among.
Scene, the Palace Court. The Queen speaking from the Battlements.
CEASE-cease your torments! spare the sufferers! Scotchmen, not theirs the deed; the crime was mine, Mine is the glory.
Idle threats! I stand
Secure. All access to these battlements
Is barr'd beyond your sudden strength to force,
And lo! the dagger by which Fergus died!
Shame on you, Scotchmen, that a woman's hand
Was left to do this deed! Shame on you, Thanes,
Who with slave-patience have so long endured
The wrongs, the insolence of tyranny!
Ye coward race!-that not a husband's sword
Smote that adulterous king! that not a wife
Revenged her own pollution; in his blood
Wash'd her soul pure; and for the sin compell'd,
Atoned by virtuous murder! Oh, my God!
Of what beast-matter hast thou moulded them,
To bear with wrongs like these? There was a time
When, if the bard had feign'd you such a tale,
Your eyes had throbb'd with anger, and your hands
In honest instinct would have grasped the sword.
O miserable men who have disgraced
Your fathers, whom your sons must blush to name!
Ay, ye can threaten me! ye can be brave
anger to a woman! one whose virtue
Upbraids your coward vice; whose name will live
Honour'd and prais'd in song, when not a hand
Shall root from your forgotten monuments
The cankering moss. Fools! fools! to think that death.
Is not a thing familiar to my mind!
As if I knew not what must consummate
My glory! as if aught that earth can give
Could tempt me to endure the load of life!
Scotchmen! ye saw when Fergus to the altar
Led me, his maiden queen. Ye blest me ther,
I heard you bless me, and I thought that Heaven
Had heard you also, and that I was blest,
For I loved Fergus. Bear me witness, God!
With what a sacred heart-sincerity
My lips pronounced the unrecallable vow
That made me his, him mine; bear witness, Thou'
Before whose throne I this day must appear,
Stain'd with his blood and mine! my heart was his
His in the strength of all its first affections.
In all obedience, in all love, I kept
Holy my marriage vow. Behold me, Thanes!
Time hath not changed the face on which his eye
So often dwelt, when with assiduous care
He sought my love, with seeming truth, for one,
Sincere herself, impossible to doubt.
Time hath not changed that face;-I speak not now,
With pride, of beauties that will feed the worm
To-morrow! but with joyful pride I say
That if the truest and most perfect love
Deserved requital, such was ever mine.
How often reeking from the adulterous bed,
Have I received him! and with no complaint.
Neglect and insult, cruelty and scorn,
Long, long did I endure, and long curb down
The indignant nature.
Tell your countrymen, Scotchmen, what I have spoken-say to them, le saw the queen of Scotland lift the dagger, Red from her husband's heart; that in her own She plunged it.
Tell them also, that she felt
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