FROM THE LATIN OF BEMBUS.
FROM PAN, while GALATEA slowly flies,
The God pursues, and hopes to clasp his prize.
His steps alluring o'er the yielding sand,
Where dangerous waters beat Sicilia's strand,
Her native deep the wily nymph regains,
eager chace the deep restrains:
Till half immers'd beneath the treacherous flood,
Stay nymph," he cries, "why thus my suit elude:
Stay, GALATEA, stay: repress thy fear:
Nor vainly think the hateful Cyclops near,
Who with rent rocks thy Acis dar'd to wound,
While jealous fury stain'd the reeking ground.—
'Tis PAN pursues,-'tis PAN, whose skill divine
First taught the tuneful reeds with wax to join;
Me, swains on pine-crown'd Mænalus adore,
And cool Lycæus owns my guardian pow'r;
For thee alone of Neptune's train I burn,
Then stay thou, nymph, and at my suit return."
He said; abrupt and steep, declin'd the shore,
And scarce the slippery bank his footsteps bore;
Yet, where the sly nymph leads the insidious way,
He treads, with haste that serves but to betray;
Till from his step withdraws the unstable ground,
And gives him sudden to the deep profound.-
Down glides the God,-by envious love beguil❜d,
With slime, and sand, his struggling form defil'd;
And on his lips, while "GALATEA” dwells,
His half form'd voice the eddying water quells.
Then first did PAN, if truth accord with fame,
Drink, in reluctant draughts, the briny stream;
Stern Neptune saw, nor bade his floods refrain
To avenge a sister of the Nereid train.
Unskill'd to swim, the exulting deep receives,
And sportive rolls him in the restless waves;
Yet thrice, the bank he seiz'd, with effort vain,
And thrice, relaps'd into the whelming main.
The struggling God, with joy the Nymph survey'd,
And her fair face a lovelier smile display'd.
His luckless fall, as round the shore they stood,
The gazing Fauns, his own attendants view'd.
Thy fall, O PAN, survey'd that wanton throng,
Whom rape delights, and revelry, and song,
The mingled Satyrs ;-and Sylvanus, thou,
Known by the cypress that adorns thy brow.
Their leader's sad mischance they mark with pain,
And, while he struggles with the billowy main,
All hail the Nymph, in tones of anxious grief,
"Haste, GALATEA! haste to his relief!
Return kind Nymph, in pity, to his aid,
Nor leave thy suitor helpless, and betray'd;-
Ah! let not such a crime thy realms disgrace,
Which not the lapse of time can e'er efface."-
Thus they exclaim; the echoing tones rebound,
And distant Etna thunders back the sound;
Yet still the Nymph, with well-dissembled fear,
Flies to the deep, nor lends a listening ear.-
With added clamours they their voices join,
And tax with cruelty each pow'r marine;
Now beat their breasts in agonizing grief,
Rush to the waves, and tender vain relief;
For still, the treacherous shore beneath their feet
Recedes, nor can support the incumbent weight.
With secret triumph, as she swims along,
The Nymph obliquely views the anxious throng;
Pleas'd that success her single art hath crown'd,
That one sole pow'r, such numbers can confound;
Then cries," since victory thus rewards our wiles,
Content we'll end the sport, and break the toils."
She said; and quick to appease their loud alarms
Plied the light oarage of her rosy arms;
While swift the refluent deep her bosom cleaves,
And stems her snowy foot the murmuring waves;
Then rais'd his dripping head, with torpid night
Opprest, nor conscious of the chearful light.
When slow-returning sense pervades his frame :
Thus she-ah! why indulge the unequal flame,
Rash power!" what frenzy urg'd with aims undue,
'Midst her own realms a sea-nymph to pursue!
To me the fates assign some other spouse,
Some pow'r marine to share my equal vows---
Hence, let thy native woods, thy views restrain,
Nor longer woo a goddess of the main."
O, SI TE COMITEM DENT RURA BEATA
BARDOLENA MIHI! O, QUIS NOS PROPTER AMOENUM
BENACUM, VIRIDI SILVIS IN LITTORE SISTAT:
ATQUE OLEA, LAUROQUE TEGAT!
Fracast. ad M. Ant. Flamin. & Galeat. Florimont,
Ir has been observed, that FRACASTOR
was not an author who wrote for fame.-His facility in composition, rendered that a pleasure to him, which to many is a toil; and in his converse with the muses, especially, he appears to have had little further view than the temporary amusement of himself, and his friends. His "Citriorum Epigrammata," and many of his smaller pieces are lost. So indifferent was this author, with regard to the fate of his poetical
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