Deep, pure, in the bosom’s bright innermost shrine, Are treasured the loves we inherit in Youth; E’en Age, with its weakness, serves but to refine Our early impressions of Virtue and Truth. Those silent Instructors—God grant them a Rest In mansions prepared for the holy in heart— For oft do they come from the Land of the Blest, And to us their kindly monitions impart. * * * * * =CLEOPATRA.= =BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT,= =TRANSLATOR OF= =THE PROMETHEUS AND AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS, ETC. ETC.= Deliberatâ morte ferveior Lævis liburnis scilicet invideus Prevata deduci superbo, Non humilis mulier, triumpho. Horace, _Lib. I. Ode 37_. Away! away! I would not live, Proud arbiter of life and death, Although the proffered boon of breath, Which fain thou wouldst, but canst not, give, Were Immortality. Though all, that poets love to dream, Of bright and beautiful were blent To flow in one delicious stream, Till time itself were spent; Though glories, such as never met In mortal monarch’s coronet, Were poured in one unclouded blaze On Cleopatra’s deathless days, I would not bear the wretched strife, The feverish agony of life, The little aims, the ends yet less, The hopes bud-blighted era they bloom, The joys that end in bitterness, The race that rests but in the tomb, These, these, not death, are misery. Nay! tell not me of pomp or pleasure, Of empire, or renown, or treasure, Of friendship’s faith or love’s devotion— Things treacherous as the wind-rocked ocean— For I have proved them all. Away! If there be ought to bless In rapture’s goblet, I have drained That draught misnamed of happiness, Till not a lurking drop remained Of honey-mantled gall. Oh! who would live, that once hath seen The Lamia Pleasure’s mask removed; That once hath learned how false the sheen Of all he erst so madly loved? And I have seen, have learned, the whole; Till, for the passions fierce and wild That torrent-like defied control, A wretched apathy of soul, Exhausted rapture’s gloomy child, Hath crept into my very blood,