The shining eye of this thy neighbouring monster !
And thou, O Sleep, nursling of gloomy Night,
Descend unmixed on this God-hated beast!
And suffer not Ulysses and his comrades,
Returning from their famous Trojan toils,
To perish by this man, who cares not either
For God or mortal; or I needs must think
That Chance is a supreme divinity,
And things divine are subject to her power.

CHORUS.

Soon a crab the throat will seize

Of him who feeds upon his guest,—
Fire will burn his lamp-like eyes
In revenge of such a feast!
A great oak-stump now is lying
In the ashes yet undying.

Come, Maron, come!

Raging let him fix the doom,
Let him tear the eyelid up,
Of the Cyclops-that his cup
May be evil!

Oh! I long to dance and revel

With sweet Bromian, long desired,

In loved ivy-wreaths attired,

Leaving this abandoned home !—

Will the moment ever come?

Ulysses. Be silent, ye wild things! Nay, hold your peace,

And keep your lips quite close; dare not to breathe,

Or spit, or e'en wink, lest ye wake the monster,

Until his eye be tortured out with fire.

Chorus. Nay, we are silent, and we chaw the air.

Ulysses. Come now, and lend a hand to the great stake

Within-it is delightfully red-hot.

Chorus. You then command who first should seize the stake To burn the Cyclops' eye, that all may share

In the great enterprise.

Semichorus I.

We are too far ;1

We cannot at this distance from the door

Thrust fire into his eye.

Semichorus II.

And we just now

Have become lame; cannot move hand or foot.

Chorus. The same thing has occurred to us ;-our ankles
Are sprained with standing here, I know not how.

Ulysses. What, sprained with standing still?
Chorus.

Or ashes in our eyes, I know not whence.

And there is dust

Ulysses. Cowardly dogs! ye will not aid me, then ? Chorus. With pitying my own back and my back-bone, And with not wishing all my teeth knocked out

This cowardice comes of itself. But stay!

I know a famous Orphic incantation

To make the brand stick of its own accord

Into the skull of this one-eyed Son of Earth.

Ulysses. Of old I knew ye thus by nature; now
I know ye better.-I will use the aid

Of my own comrades.-Yet, though weak of hand,
Speak cheerfully, that so ye may awaken

The courage of my friends with your blithe words.
Chorus. This I will do with peril of my life,
And blind you with my exhortations, Cyclops.

Hasten and thrust !
And parch up to dust
The eye of the beast

Who feeds on his guest.

Burn and blind

The Etnean hind!

Scoop and draw!

But beware lest he claw

Your limbs near his maw.

Cyclops. Ah me! my eyesight is parched up to cinders! Chorus. What a sweet pæan! Sing me that again! Cyclops. Ah me! indeed, what woe has fallen upon me? But, wretched Nothings, think ye not to flee

Out of this rock! I, standing at the outlet,

Will bar the way, and catch you as you pass.
Chorus. What are you roaring out, Cyclops?
Cyclops.

Chorus. For you are wicked.
Cyclops.

I perish!

And besides miserable.

Chorus. What, did you fall into the fire when drunk?

Cyclops. I wish you were as blind as I am!

Chorus.

It cannot be that no one made you blind.

Nay,

Cyclops. You jeer me; where, I ask, is Nobody?
Chorus. No-where, O Cyclops.

Cyclops. It was that stranger ruined me !—the wretch

First gave me wine, and then burnt out my eye,

For wine is strong and hard to struggle with.

Have they escaped, or are they yet within?

Chorus. They stand under the darkness of the rock, And cling to it.

Cyclops.

At my right hand or left?
Chorus. Close on your right..
Cyclops.

Where?

Chorus.

Near the rock itself.

You have them.

Oh misfortune on misfortune!

Now they escape you there.

Not on that side.

They creep about you on your left.

Chorus.

Cyclops. Not there, although you say so.
Chorus.

Cyclops. Where then?
Chorus.

Cyclops. Ah! I am mocked! They jeer me in my ills.
Chorus. Not there! he is a little there beyond you.
Cyclops. Detested wretch! where are you?
Viysses.

I keep with care this body of Ulysses.

Far from you

Cyclops. What do you say? You proffer a new name.
Ulysses. My father named me so. And I have taken

A full revenge for your unnatural feast;

I should have done ill to have burned down Troy,

And not revenged the murder of my comrades.

Cyclops. Ai! ai! the ancient oracle is accomplished;

It said that I should have my eyesight blinded

By you coming from Troy; yet it foretold

1819.

That you should pay the penalty for this
By wandering long over the homeless sea.

Ulysses. I bid thee weep!-Consider what I say;

I go towards the shore, to drive my ship

To mine own land o'er the Sicilian wave.

Cyclops. Not so, if whelming you with this huge stone I can crush you and all your men together!

I will descend upon the shore, though blind,

Groping my way adown the steep ravine.

Chorus. And we, the shipmates of Ulysses now,
Will serve our Bacchus all our happy lives.

EPIGRAMS FROM THE GREEK.

1.-SPIRIT OF PLATO.

"EAGLE! why soarest thou above that tomb? To what sublime and star-ypaven home Floatest thou?"

"I am the image of swift Plato's spirit, Ascending heaven :-Athens doth inherit His corpse below."

II. CIRCUMSTANCE.

A MAN who was about to hang himself,
Finding a purse, then threw away his rope;
The owner, coming to reclaim his pelf,

The halter found, and used it. So is hope
Changed for despair-one laid upon the shelf,
We take the other. Under heaven's high cope
Fortune is God: all you endure and do
Depends on circumstance as much as you.

FROM PLATO.

I. TO STELLA.

THOU wert the Morning Star among the living, Ere thy fair light had fled ;

Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving New splendour to the dead.

II.

KISSING Helena, together

With my kiss, my soul beside it

Came to my lips, and there I kept it,— For the poor thing had wandered thither, To follow where the kiss should guide it. Oh cruel I to intercept it !