See! from her cheek the rosy lustre flies; How dim the beams that sparkled in her eyes. No more so softly heaves the throbbing breast; The purple currents in their channels rest;-- No more the Zephyr's balmy breath can wave The graceful locks which laughing Hebe gave;-- And fade those lips where fresh vermilion shone, Cold as the clay, or monumental stone;-- O'er all her limbs an icy numbness spreads, And marble death eternal quiet sheds. [2]Great sculptor hail! whom Nature's self design'd To trace the labyrinths of the human mind-- To read the heart, and give with strong control, To stone the silent workings of the soul: Thine all-creative hand, thy matchless skill Could what unbounded genius plann'd, fulfil. Hence sprang that grief-wrung form--the languid eye-- The bloodless lip, and look of agony-- That face, where mute contending passions play-- That life of pain, of anguish, and dismay. To sink she seems beneath the afflictive weight Of gloomy cares portentous of her fate;-- Yet on her brow still soft Affection beams, Tho' Desperation prompts her sombre dreams. Parental feelings thrill her tortur'd breast, And all the frantic mother stands confest-- A very Niobe--sad, hapless name! In figure, features, and in all the same: The same in all as Vengeance fierce pursued Far to a wild and cheerless solitude. For Salmo's bard has sung (by Heaven's decrees) In awful pomp she mounted on the breeze-- Borne by the buoyant wind--a ghostly form-- She sail'd along the region of the storm. So oft 'tis said in Lapland's chill domain, Where dreary winter holds a lengthen'd reign, What time the Runic drum and magic spell Evoke the rapt soul from its fragile cell, Attendant spirits, won by charms and prayer, In gliding motion float upon the air. _Sydenham._ S.S. [2] Praxiteles. * * * * * THE RHINE. (_To the Editor._)