For well he knows the bed of roses
On which great Juno's mate reposes.
At length to heaven's high: portal come-
No smile, no squeeze, no welcome home-
With nose up tossed and bitter sneer
She scowls upon her partner dear;

. From morn till noon, from noon to night,
'Twas still a lecture to the wight;
And yet the morning, sooth to say,
Was far the mildest of the day:
For in those regions of the sky
The goddesses are rather shy
To beard the nipping carly airs,

And, therefore, come not soon down stairs;
But snugly wrapped, sit up and read,
Or take their chocolate in bed.
So Jove his breakfast took in quiet,
Looks there might be, but yet no riot;
And had good store of list'ners come,
It might have been no silent room;
But she, like our theatric wenches,
Loved not to play to empty benches.
Her brows close met in hostile form,
She heaves the symptoms of the storm:
But yet the storm itself repressed,
Labours prelusive in her breast;-
Reserved as music, for that hour
When ev'ry male and female power
Should crowd the festive board around,
With nectar or ambrosia crowned;

In wreathed smiles and garlands dressed,
With Jove to share the gen'rous feast:-
"Twas then the snowy-elbow'd queen
Drew forth the stores of rage and spleen;
'Twas then the gathered storm she sped,
Full levelled at the thunderer's head.
In descant dire she chanted o'er
The tale so often told before-
His graceless gambols here on earth,
The secret meeting, secret birth;
His country freaks in delis and valleys,
In town, o'er strands, and Cranbourne alleys;
Here lifts his burglar hand the latch-
There scrambles through a peasant's thatch;
When such a prowling fox gets loose,
What honest man can keep his goose?
Nor was the Theban feat untold,
Trinoctial feat, so famed of old;
When night, the pandar vigil kept,
And Phoebus snord as if he slept:
And then Europa, hateful name!
A god, a bull! Oh fie-for shame!
When vagrant love can cost so dear,
No wonder we've no nurs'ry here!
No wonder, when imperial Jove
Can meanly hunt each paltry love;
Sometimes on land, sometimes on water,
With this man's wife, and that man's daughter:
If I must wear a matron willow,
And lonely press a barren pillow.
When Leda, too, thought fit to wander,
She found her paramour a gander:-
And did his godship mount the nest?
And take his turn to hatch and rest?
And did he purvey for their food,
And mince it for the odious brood?-

The eagle winked, and drooped his wing,
Scarce to the dusky bolt could cling,
And look'd as if he thought his lord
A captain with a wooden sword;
While Juno's bird displayed on high
The thousand eyes of jealousy.
Hermes looked arch, and Venus leered,
Minerva bridk d, Momus sneered;
Poor Hebe trembled, simple lass!
And spilt the wine and broke the glass.
Jove felt the weather rather rough,

And thought long since't had blown enough.
His knife and fork unused were crossed,
His temper and his dinner lost;

For ere the vesper peal was done
The viands were as cold as stone.
This Venus saw, and grieved to see;
For though she thought Jove rather free,
Yet at his idle pranks she smiled,
As wand'rings of a heart beguiled;
Nor wondered if astray he run,
For well she knew her 'scape grace son,
And who can hope his way to find,
When blind, and guided by the blind?
Her finger to her brow she brought,
And gently touched the source of thought,
The unseen fountain of the brain,
Where fancy breeds her shadowy train:
The vows that ever are to last,
But wither ere the lip they've past;
The secret hope, the secret fear

That heaves the sigh or prompts the tear;
The ready turn, the quick disguise,
That cheats the lover's watchful eyes.
So from the rock, the sorcerer's wand
The gushing waters can command;
So quickly started from her mind
The lucky thought she wished to find.
Her mantle round her then she threw,
Of twilight made, of modest hue;
The warp by mother night was spun,
And shot athwart with beams of sun;
But beams first drawn thro' murky air,
To spunge the gloss and dim the glare.
Thus gifted with a double charm,
Like love, 'twas secret, and 'twas warm:
It was the very same she wore
On Simois' banks, when, long before,
The sage Anchises formed the plan
Of that so brave and godly man,
Whose fame o'ertop'd the topmast star,
For arts of peace and deeds of war;*
So fam'd for fighting and for praying,
For courting warm, and cool betraying;
Who showed poor Dido, all on fire,
That Cyprus was not far from Tyre;
The founder of Hesperia's hopes-
Sire of her demi-gods and popes.
And now her car the Paphian queen
Ascends-her car of sea-bright green.
Her graces slim with golden locks
Sits smiling on the dicky box:
While Cupid wantons with a sparrow,
That pe rched upon the urchin's arrow.
She gives the word, and through the sky,
Her doves th' according pinions ply,
As bounding thought, as glancing light,
So swift they wing their giddy flight;
They pass the Wain, they pass the Sun;
The Comet's burning train they shun:
Lightly they skim th' Ægean vast,
And touch the Lemnian Isle at last.
Here Venus checks her winged speed, '
And sets them free to rest or feed;
She bids her Graces sport the while,
Or pick sweet posies round the Isle;
But cautions them against mishaps,
For Lemnos is the isle of traps.
Beware the lure of vulgar toys,
And fly from bulls and shepherd boys."
A cloud of smoke that climbs the sky,
Bespeaks the forge of Vulcan nigh;
Thither her way the Goddess bends,
Her darkling son her steps attends:
Led by the sigh that Zephyr breathes,
When round her roseate neck he wreathes,
The plastic God of Fire is found;
His various labours scattered round:-
Unfinished bars, and bolts, and portals,
Cages for Gods, and chains for mortals.
'Twas iron work upon commission,
For a Romance's first edition.

*Fama super æthera

Soon as the beauteous queen he spied,
A sting of love, a sting of pride,
A pang of shame, of faith betray'd,
By turns his lab'ring breast invade;

But Venus quelled them with a smile,
That might a wiser God beguile:

Could'st thou not then, with skill divine,
For ev'ry cunning art is thine,
Contrive some spring-some potent chain,
That might an angry tongue restrain?
Or find, at least, some mystic charm,
To keep the sufferer's viands warm?

To mix it with a blush she strove.

With hobbling step he comes to greet
The faithless guest with welcome meet.
Pyraemon saw the vanquished God,
And gives to Steropes the nod;
He winks to Brontes as to say,
We may be just as well away:
'They've got some iron in the fire,
So all three modestly retire.

And now, sweet Venus, tell,' he cries,
'What cause has brought thee from the skies?
Why leave the seats of mighty Jove?
Alas! I fear it was not love.

What claim to love could Vulcan boast,
An outcast on an exile coast;
Condemned, in this sequester'd isle,
To sink beneath unseemly toil?
'Tis not for me to lead the war,
Or guide the day's refulgent car;
"Tis not for me the dance to twine;
'Tis not for me to count the nine;
No vision whispers to my dream;
No muse inspires my wakeful theme;
No string respousive to my art,

Gives the sweet note that thrills the heart:
The present is with gloom o'ercast,
And sadness feeds upon the past.
Say, then; for ah! it can't be love,

What cause has brought thee from above?
So spoke the God, in jealous mood,
The wily goddess thus pursued:-

And can'st thou, Vulcan, thus decline
The meeds of praise so justly thine?
To whom, the fav'rite son of heav'n,
The mystic pow'rs of fire are giv'n;
That fire that feeds the star of night,
And fills the solar beam with light;
That bids the stream of life to glow
Through air, o'er earth, in depths below:
Thou deignést not to court the nine,
Nor yet the mazy dance to twine;-
But these light gifts of verse and song,
To humbler natures must belong:
Behold yon oak, that seems to reign
The monarch of the subject plain;

No flowers beneath his arms are found,
To bloom, and fling their fragrance round:
Abashed, in his o'erwhelming shade

Their scents must die, their leaves must fade.
Thou dost not love thro' wastes of war
Headlong to drive th' ensanguined car,
And sweep whole millions to the grave;-
Thine is the nobler art to save.
Formed by thy hand the tempered shield
Safe brings the warrior from the field;
Ah! could'st thou then the mother see;
Her ev'ry thought attached to thee!
Not the light love that lives a day,
Which its own sighs can blow away-
But fixed and fervent in her breast,
The wish to make the blesser blessed,
Then give thy splendid lot its due,
And view thyself as others view.
Great sure thou art, when from above
I come a supplicant for Jove;
For Jove himself laments like thee
To find no fate from suffering free.
Dire is the strife when Juno rails,
And fierce the din his ear assails;
In vain the festive board is crowned,
No joys at that sad board are found;
And when the storm is spent at last,
The dinner's cold, and Jove must fast.

What glory must the deed attend!
What joy thro' all the realms above-
What high rewards from grateful Jove!
How blessed! could I behold thee rise
To thy lost station in the skies;
How sweet! should vows, thou may'st have
Or lightly kept or soon forgot,

[thought

Which wayward fates had seemed to sever, Their knots re-tie, and bind for ever!”

She said, and sighed or seemed to sigh,
And downward cast her conscious eye,
To leave the God more free to gaze;-
Who can withstand the voice of praise!
By beauty charmed, by flatt'ry won,
Each doubt, each jealous fear is gone;
No more was bow'd his anxious head,
His heart was cheered, he smiled, and said;
And could'st thou vainly hope to find
A power the female tongue to bind?
Sweet friend! 'twere easier far to drain,
The waters from th' unruly main,
Or quench the stars,or bid the sun
No more his destined courses run.
By laws, as old as earth or ocean,
That tongue has a perpetual motion,
Which marks the longitude of speech;
To curb its force no power can reach;
Its privilege is raised above

The sceptre of imperial Jove.
Thine other wish, some mystic charm
To keep the sufferers viands warin,
I know no interdict of fate,

Which says that art mayn't warm a plate.
The model, too, I've got for that,
I take it from thy gipsey hat;
I saw thee thinking o'er the past,
I saw thine eye-beam upward cast,
I saw the concave catch the ray,
And turn its course another way,
Reflected back upon thy cheek,
It glowed upon the dimple sleek.

The willing task was soon begun,
And soon the grateful labour done.
The ore, obedient to his hand,
Assumes a shape at his command:
The tripod base stands firm below,
The burnished sides ascending grow;
Divisions apt th' interior bound,
With vaulted roof the top is crowned.
The artist, amorous and vain,
Delights the structure to explain:
To show how rays converging meet.
And light is gathered into heat.
Within its verge he flings a rose,
Behold how fresh and fair it glows:
O'erpowered by heat now see it waste.
Like vanished love, its fragrance past!
Pleased with the gift, the Paphian queert
Remounts her car of sea-bright green.
The gloomy God desponding sighs,
To see her car ascend the skies,
And strains its lessening form to trace,
'Till sight is lost in misty space;
Then sullen yields his clouded brain,
To converse with habitual pain.

The Goddess now arrived above,
Displays the shining gift of love,
And shows fair Hebe how to lay
The plates of gold in order gay.
The Gods and Goddesses admire
The labour of the God of fire.
And give it a high-sounding name,
Such as might hand it down to fame