And stern-eyed murderer, with his knife behind,
In dread succession agonize her mind.
O'er her fair limbs convulsive tremors fleet,
Start in her hands, and struggle in her feet;
In vain to scream with quivering lips she tries,
And strains in palsied lids her tremulous eyes;
In vain she wills to run, fly, swim, walk, creep;
The WILL presides not in the bower of SLEEP.
On her fair bosom sits the demon-ape

Erect, and balances his bloated shape;
Rolls in their marble orbs his gorgon-eyes,
And drinks with leathern ears her tender cries.

THOR'S CAVE.

WHERE HAMPS and MANIFOLD, their cliffs among,
Each in his flinty channel winds along ;
With lucid lines the dusky moor divides,

Hurrying to intermix their sister tides;
Where still their silver-bosom'd nymphs abhor
The blood-smear'd mansion of gigantic THOR,
Erst, fires volcanic in the marble womb

Of cloud-wrapt WETTON raised the massy dome;
Rocks rear'd on rocks in huge disjointed piles
Form the tall turrets, and the lengthen❜d ailes ;
Broad ponderous piers sustain the roof, and wide
Branch the vast rainbow ribs from side to side.
While from above descends, in milky streams,
One scanty pencil of illusive beams,

Suspended crags and gaping gulphs illumes,
And gilds the horrors of the deepen'd glooms,
Here oft the naiads, as they chanced to play
Near the dread fane on THOR's returning day,

Saw from red altars streams of guiltless blood
Stain their green reed-beds and pollute their flood;
Heard dying babes in wicker prisons wail,

And shrieks of matrons thrill the affrighted gale;
While from dark caves infernal echoes mock,
And fiends triumphant shout from every rock!
So still the nymphs emerging lift in air

Their snow-white shoulders and their azure hair;
Sail with sweet grace the dimpling streams along,
Listening the shepherd's or the miner's song;
But, when afar they view the giant cave,
On timorous fins they circle on the wave;

With streaming eyes and throbbing hearts recoil,
Plunge their fair forms, and dive beneath the soil.
Closed round their heads reluctant eddies sink,
And wider rings successive dash the brink.
Three thousand steps in sparry clefts they stray,
Or seek through sullen mines their gloomy way;
On beds of lava sleep in coral cells,

Or sigh o'er jasper fish, and agate shells.

Till where famed ILAM leads his boiling floods

Through flowery meadows and impending woods,

151

Pleased with light spring they leave the dreary

night,

And mid circumfluent surges rise to light;

Shake their bright locks, the widening vale pursue, Their sea-green mantles fringed with pearly dew; In playful groups by towering THORP they move, Bound o'er the foaming wears, and rush into the Dove.

MEDEA AND HER CHILDREN,

So when MEDEA left her native soil
Unawed by danger, unsubdued by toil;

Her weeping sire and beckoning friends withstood,
And launcht enamor'd on the boiling flood;
One ruddy boy her gentle lips carest,

And one fair girl was pillow'd on her breast;
While high in air the golden treasure burns,
And love and glory guide the prow by turns.
But, when Thessalia's inauspicious plain
Received the matron-heroine from the main;
While horns of triumph sound, and altars burn,
And shouting nations hail their chief's return;
Aghast, she saw new-deckt the nuptial bed,
And proud CREUSA to the temple led;

Saw her in JASON's mercenary arms

Deride her virtues, and insult her charms;

Saw her dear babes from fame and empire torn,

In foreign realms deserted and forlorn;