498 Detur Amantiori. [May, 



The Pleading of Eucharis for Bathi/llus. 



Oh ! Queen of Beauty and of Love ! whose birth 



From the bright billow scatter'd o'er the earth 



Life, joy, and gladness, unto all that lives ! 



As Phoebus, rising from the like wave, gives 



Brilliance, and light, and beauty to the world, 



Yet leaves, o'er some unfavoured spot, unfuiled 



The curtain of mirk night, — so to j?ij/ heart, 



That unillumin'd and o'ershadowed part, 



Thy gifts, for life, is death — for gladness, care — 



For young, elastic, buoyant joy — despair ! 



Or rather, like th' unmitigated power 



Of Sol, when smiling on his own bright flower. 



Which causes the poor vot'ry to decline 



And droop in the excessive beams, which shine 



In fatal love upon it, till it dies, 



Scorch'd by the brightness of those worshipp'd eyes, — 



So is the sweetness of the cup, which thou, 



Goddess of love ! didst mingle for me, now 



Turned into bitter too intense to bear; 



Like the bright fruit of pleasure, the more fair 



Its outward hue, the fouler are the ashes 



On which th' unwary tooth inwardly gnashes ! 



The ruddiest morns the stormiest evenings bring; 



The brightest serpents have the deadliest sting. 



Thy gifts, oh Goddess ! are the sweetest given 



To us below, 'mongst all the boons of heaven : 



So do the curses of all else seem mild 



To thine, and those of thy unpitying child ! 



Athenians ! listen to the claim I make : 



" He loved the best," for whose beloved sake 



I come, though shrouded in this mourning weed. 



To prove, to him the honour-giving jneed 



Of love is due. Attend : my tale is brief; 



And ill this gay crowd fits my heart of grief. 



Though 'mongst the sacred guardians of the sky 



Pallas is our peculiar deity, 



We also kneel at Cytherea's shrine, 



And own the influence of that divine 



And searching essence, which to ev'ry soul 



Adds that ennobling drop which vivifies the whole ! 



Oh, Love ! omnipotent in good and ill I 



Noblest and meanest ! first to save or kill ! 



Source of the foulest treasons — the most great 



And glorious actions on the roll of fate — 



Of all that raises and defiles the mind ! 



LjTix-eyed to fancies, to the real blind ! 



Through thee, the man beneath the brute is driven ! 



Through thee, he almost merits rank in heaven ! 



Faithful to death, yet changing in an hour — 



Firm as the oak, and fragile as the flower— 



Thy smile a blessing is, thy frown a curse — 



Thy good excels the best, thy bad than worst is worse ! 



Your laws judge thus, Athenians ; they decree 

 " Death to the faithless !" lest the crime should b 

 If left unpunish'd, reason why the gods 

 Should wield in anger their avenging rods 



