By ministering slaves, upon his hands and feet,
And fragrant oils with ceremony meet

Pour'd on his hair, they all moved to the feast

In white robes, and themselves in order placed
Around the silken couches, wondering

Whence all this mighty cost and blaze of wealth
could spring.

Soft went the music the soft air along,
While fluent Greek a vowelled under-song
Kept up among the guests, discoursing low
At first, for scarcely was the wine at flow;
But when the happy vintage touch'd their brains,
Louder they talk, and louder come the strains
Of powerful instruments: -the gorgeous dyes,
The space, the splendour of the draperies,
The roof of awful richness, nectarous cheer.
Beautiful slaves, and Lamia's self, appear,
Now, when the wine has done its rosy deed,
And every soul from human trammels freed,
No more so strange; for merry wine, sweet wine,
Will make Elysian shades not too fair, too divine."

The mirth and joyousness proceed; but a fearful change is fast coming o'er "the spirit of the dream," though the time is not yet. Lycius had crowned a full brimming goblet, and in vain essayed to attract the eye of the surly philosopher, in order to pledge him. There was no succeeding response; with ex

pressive silence and masterly inaction, the uninvited intruder continued to fix his cold glance

"Full on the alarm'd beauty of the bride,

Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride."

She, evincing the most unmistakable symptoms of emotion and terror, her surprised spouse anxiously interposes

"Lycius then press'd her hand, with devout touch,
As pale it lay upon the rosy couch :

'Twas icy, and the cold ran through his veins ;
Then sudden it grew hot, and all the pains

Of an unnatural heat shot to his heart.

'Lamia, what means this? wherefore dost thou start? Know'st thou that man?' Poor Lamia answer'd not.

He gazed into her eyes, and not a jot

Own'd they the lovelorn, piteous appeal :

More, more he gazed: his human senses reel :

Some hungry spell that loveliness absorbs ;
There was no recognition in those orbs.
'Lamia,' he cried-and no soft-toned reply
The many heard, and the loud revelry

Grew hush; the stately music no more breathes :
The myrtle sicken'd in a thousand wreathes.

By faint degrees, voice, lute, and pleasure ceased;

A deadly silence step by step increased;

Until it seem'd a horrid presence there,

And not a man but felt the terror in his hair."

Scarce could there have been manifested greater astonishment and awe in the palace of the impious monarch of Babylon, when, blazing on the wall with lurid splendour, the mystic letters scared the bewildered throng. It is, perhaps, almost a little too much overstrained or expanded, like a wire beaten out. Though in the language of our own immortal Shakspeare, "all orators are dumb when Beauty pleadeth," the tutor of Lycius proved a dreadful and remorseless exception to that most winning axiom. On his pupil upbraiding him for what he, at the time, considered to be ruthless conduct

""Fool!' said the sophist, in an under-tone

Gruff with contempt; which a death-nighing moan
From Lycius answered, as, heart-struck and lost,

He sank supine beside the aching ghost.
'Fool! fool!' repeated he, while his eyes still
Relented not, nor moved; 'from every ill

Of life have I preserved thee to this day,
And shall I see thee made a serpent's prey?'
Then Lamia breathed death-breath; the sophist's eye,

Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly,

Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging: she, as well
As her weak hand could any meaning tell,
Motion'd him to be silent; vainly so,

He look'd and look'd again a level— No !
'A serpent!' echoed he; no sooner said,
Than with a frightful scream she vanished:
And Lycius' arms were empty of delight,
As were his limbs of life, from that same night.
On the high couch he lay !—his friends came round-
Supported him-no pulse or breath they found,
And, in its marriage robe, the heavy body wound."

In some respects, this earnest and classic poem bears a certain resemblence to "Vivien," one of Alfred Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," (to which, in a new edition, the feeling dedication to the memory of the late much-lamented Prince Consort lends an additional and most graceful charm ;) a work that, though nobly sustaining his high reputation, can hardly be reckoned the Laureate's happiest effort-at any rate, certainly not the masterpiece of his universally recognised and admirable genius. I may mention that a copy of "Lamia" was found open in the pocket of Shelley when his lifeless remains were discovered. It had always been a favourite of his, as it well merited to be, and he had doubtless been reading it when overtaken by the disastrous storm in which he perished;

F

it was consumed along with him, on the same funeral pyre, through the fond and faithful zeal of that poet's sorrowing friends. Among the "Miscellaneous Poems" of Keats, may be enumerated, as the most excellent, his inimitable ode "To a Nightingale," which is, indeed, "full of the warm south," and will safely pass through the ordeal of competition, even with Elizabeth Barrett Browning's splendid verses, "Wine of Cyprus;" "On a Grecian Urn;" "To Autumn;" in which occurs that passage of such natural and delightful artlessness

"Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes, whoever seeks abroad, may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;"

"On Melancholy," as well as, by no means to be slightly regarded, his spirit-stirring sonnet, (which I have already glanced at,) "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer." Through this remarkable stanza, characterised, as it is, by clear thought and noble diction, his whole soul seems embued and overflowing with the real Homeric sublimity. In his charming effusion, "Sleep and Poetry," how gracefully has he classed together a group of similes in reference to Life,