Leave us at least, if not the things we were,

At least consentient to the thing we be;

Not hapless doomed to loathe the forms we bear,

And senseful roll in senseless savagery ;

For surely cursed above all cursed are we,

And surely this the bitterest of ill ;

To feel the old aspirings fair and free

Become blind motions of a powerless will

Through swine-like frames dispersed to swine-like issues

still.

But make us men again, for that thou may'st!—

Yea, make us men, Enchantress, and restore
These grovelling shapes, degraded and debased,
To fair embodiments of men once more ;-

Yea, by all men that ever woman bore ;—

Yea, e'en by him hereafter born in pain

Shall draw sustainment from thy bosom's core,
O'er whom thy face yet kindly shall remain,

And find its like therein,—make thou us men again!

Make thou us men again,-if men but groping
That dark Hereafter which th' Olympians keep; ̈ ̈
Make thou us men again,-if men but hoping
Behind death's doors security of sleep ;-

For yet to laugh is somewhat, and to weep ;-
To feel delight of living, and to plough

The salt-blown acres of the shoreless deep;—
Better,-yea better far all these than bow

Foul faces to foul earth, and yearn—as we do now!

So they in speech unsyllabled. But She,

The fair-tressed Goddess, born to be their bane, Uplifting straight her wand of ivory,

Compelled them groaning to the styes again;
Where they in hopeless bitterness were fain
To rend the oaken woodwork as before,

And tear the troughs in impotence of pain,-
Not knowing, they, that even at the door

Divine Odysseus stood,-as Hermes told of yore.

A ROMAN "ROUND-ROBIN.”

("HIS FRIENDS" TO QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS.)

"Haec decies repetita [non] placebit."—ARS POETICA.

FLACCUS, you write us charming songs:

No bard we know possesses

In such perfection what belongs

To brief and bright addresses;

No man can say that Life is short

With mien so little fretful;

No man to Virtue's paths exhort

In phrases less regretful;

Or touch, with more serene distress,

On Fortune's ways erratic;

And then delightfully digress

From Alp to Adriatic :

All this is well, no doubt, and tends

Barbarian minds to soften ;

But, Horace-we, we are your friends—

Why tell us this so often?

Why feign to spread a cheerful feast,

And then thrust in our faces

These barren scraps (to say the least)

Of Stoic common-places ?

Recount, and welcome, your pursuits :

Sing Lyde's lyre and hair;

Sing drums and Berecynthian flutes;

Sing parsley-wreaths; but spare,

O, spare to sing, what none deny,

That things we love decay ;

That Time and Gold have wings to fly ;

That all must Fate obey!

Or bid us dine-on this day week—

And pour us, if you can,

As soft and sleek as girlish cheek,
Your inmost Cæcuban ;-

Of that we fear not overplus;
But your didactic 'tap'—

Forgive us!-grows monotonous;

Nunc vale! Verbum sap.