The myrtle sicken'd in a thousand wreaths. By faint degrees, voice, lute, and pleasure ceased; A deadly silence step by step increased, Until it seem'd a horrid presence there, And not a man but felt the terror in his hair. "Lamia!" he shriek'd; and nothing but the shriek With its sad echo did the silence break. "Begone, foul dream!" he cried, gazing again Corinthians look upon that grey-beard wretch! 66 Fool!" said the sophist, in an under-tone Gruff with contempt; which a death-nighing moan Then Lamia breathed death-breath; the sophist's eye, He look'd and look'd again a level-No! 66 'A serpent!" echoed he; no sooner said, Than with a frightful scream she vanished: And Lycius' arms were empty of delight, As were his limbs of life, from that same night. *"Philostratus, in his fourth book, de Vita Apollonii, hath a memorable instance in this kind, which I may not omit, of one Menippus Lycius, a young man twenty-five years of age, that, going betwixt Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a phantasm in the habit of a fair gentlewoman, which, taking him by the hand, carried him home to her house, in the suburbs of Corinth, and told him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if he would tarry with her, he should hear her sing and play, and drink such wine as never any drank, and no man should molest him; but she, being fair and lovely, would die with him, that was fair and lovely to behold. The young man, a philosopher, otherwise staid and discreet, able to moderate his passions, though not this of love, tarried with her awhile to his great content, and at last married her, to whose wedding, amongst other guests, came Apollonius; who, by some probable conjectures, found her out to be a serpent, a lamia; and that all her furniture was, like Tantalus' gold, described by Homer, no substance, but mere illusions. When she saw herself descried, she wept, and desired Apollonius to be silent, but he would not be moved, and thereupon she, plate, house, and all that was in it, vanished in an instant; many thousands took notice of this fact, for it was done in the midst of Greece "-BURTON's Anatomy of Melancholy, Part 3, Sect. 2, Memb. I. Subs. I. ISABELLA, OR THE POT OF BASIL; A STORY, FROM BOCCACCIO. I, FAIR Isabel, poor simple Isabel ! Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye! They could not in the self-same mansion dwell Without some stir of heart, some malady; They could not sit at meals but feel how well It soothed each to be the other by ; They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep, But to each other dream, and nightly weep. II. With every morn their love grew tenderer, To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill; III. He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch, Before the door had given her to his eyes; And from her chamber-window he would catch Her beauty farther than the falcon spies ; And constant as her vespers would he watch, Because her face was turn'd to the same skies; And with sick longing all the night outwear, To hear her morning-step upon the stair. IV. A whole long month of May in this sad plight Made their cheeks paler by the break of June: 'To-morrow will I bow to my delight, To-morrow will I ask my lady's boon.""O may I never see another night, Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love's tune."So spake they to their pillows; but, alas, Honeyless days and days did he let pass; V. Until sweet Isabella's untouch'd cheek How ill she is!" said he, "I may not speak, And yet I will, and tell my love all plain : If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears, And at the least 'twill startle off her cares." VI. So said he one fair morning, and all day For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide VII. So once more he had waked and anguished To every symbol on his forehead high; And straight all flush'd; so, lisped tenderly, "Lorenzo!"-here she ceased her timid quest, But in her tone and look he read the rest. VIII. "O Isabella! I can half perceive That I may speak my grief into thine ear; If thou didst ever anything believe, Believe how I love thee, believe how near My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear Thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live Another night, and not my passion shrive. IX. "Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold, And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme: Parting they seem'd to tread upon the air, The inward fragrance of each other's heart. |