Hard by dwelt he {130} who, while the Gods deigned eat At good men’s tables, gave them dreadful meat, A child he slew:—his mountain altar green Here still hath Zeus, with rites untold of me, Piteous, but as they are let these things be, And as from the beginning they have been! INVOCATION OF ISIS. (_Apuleius_, _Metamorph. XI_.) THOU that art sandalled on immortal feet With leaves of palm, the prize of Victory; Thou that art crowned with snakes and blossoms sweet, Queen of the silver dews and shadowy sky, I pray thee by all names men name thee by! Demeter, come, and leave the yellow wheat! Or Aphrodite, let thy lovers sigh! Or Dian, from thine Asian temple fleet! Or, yet more dread, divine Persephone From worlds of wailing spectres, ah, draw near; Approach, Selene, from thy subject sea; Come, Artemis, and this night spare the deer: By all thy names and rites I summon thee; By all thy rites and names, Our Lady, hear! THE COMING OF ISIS. SO Lucius prayed, and sudden, from afar, Floated the locks of Isis, shone the bright Crown that is tressed with berry, snake, and star; She came in deep blue raiment of the night, Above her robes that now were snowy white, Now golden as the moons of harvest are, Now red, now flecked with many a cloudy bay, Now stained with all the lustre of the light. Then he who saw her knew her, and he knew The awful symbols borne in either hand; The golden urn that laves Demeter’s dew, The handles wreathed with asps, the mystic wand; The shaken seistron’s music, tinkling through The temples of that old Osirian land. _THE SPINET_. _MY heart an old Spinet with strings_ _To laughter chiefly turned_, _but some_ _That Fate has practised hard on_, _dumb_, _They answer not whoever sings_. _The ghosts of half-forgotten things_ _Will touch the keys with fingers numb_, _The little mocking spirits come_ _And thrill it with their fairy wings_. _A jingling harmony it makes_ _My heart_, _my lyre_, _my old Spinet_, _And now a memory it wakes_, _And now the music means_ “_forget_,” _And little heed the player takes_ _Howe’er the thoughtful critic fret_. NOTES. Page 3. _The Fortunate Islands_. This piece is a rhymed loose version of a passage in the _Vera Historia_ of Lucian. The humorist was unable to resist the temptation to introduce passages of mockery, which are here omitted. Part of his description of the Isles of the Blest has a close and singular resemblance to the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse. The clear River of Life and the prodigality of gold and of precious stones may especially be noticed.