Blest fate! at once my chilly grave
And nuptial bed that stream might be;
I'll wed thee in its mimic wave.
And die upon the shade of thee.
Behold the leafy mangrove, bending
O'er the waters blue and bright,
Like Nea's silky lashes, lending
Shadow to her eyes of light.
Oh, my beloved! where'er I turn,
Some trace of thee enchants mine eyes:
In every star thy glances burn;
Thy blush on every floweret lies.
Nor find I in creation aught
Of bright or beautiful or rare,
Sweet to the sense of pure to thought,
But thou art found reflected there.
[1] This method of polishing pearls, by leaving them awhile to be played
with by doves, is mentioned by the fanciful Cardanus.
[2] The Milesiacs, or Milesian fables, had their origin in Miletus, a
luxurious town of Ionia. Aristides was the most celebrated author of these
licentious fictions.
[3] It appears that in very splendid mansions the floor or pavement was
frequently of onyx.
[4] Bracelets of this shape were a favorite ornament among the women of
antiquity.
[5] The inhabitants pronounce the name as if it were written Bermooda. I
wonder it did not occur to some of those all-reading gentlemen that,
possibly, the discoverer of this "island of hogs and devils" might have
been no less a personage than the great John Bermudez, who, about the same
period (the beginning of the sixteenth century), was sent Patriarch of the
Latin church to Ethiopia, and has left us most wonderful stories of the
Amazons and the Griffins which he encountered.
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