[Footnote: Pos-ei'don, another name for Neptune, the sea-god.]

In the old oak a Dryad dwelt; The fingers of a nymph were felt In the fine-rippled flood; At drowsy noon, when all was still, Faunus lay sleeping on the hill, And strange and bright-eyed gamesome creatures, With hairy limbs and goat-like features, Peered from the prickly wood.

[Footnote: The Sa'tyrs.]

Thus every power that zones the sphere With forms of beauty and of fear, In starry sky, on grassy ground, And in the fishy brine profound, Were, to the hoar Pelasgic men That peopled erst each Grecian glen, GODS--or the actions of a god: Gods were in every sight and sound And every spot was hallowed ground Where these far-wandering patriarchs trod.

But all this fairy world has passed away, to live only as shadows in the realms of fancy and of song. SCHILLER gives expression to the poet's lament in the following lines:

Art thou, fair world, no more? Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face! Ah, only on the minstrel's magic shore Can we the footsteps of sweet Fable trace! The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life; Vainly we search the earth, of gods bereft; Where once the warm and living shapes were rife Shadows alone are left.

The Latin poet OV'ID, who lived at the time of the Christian era, has collected from the fictions of the early Greeks and Oriental nations, and woven into one continuous history, the pagan accounts of the Creation, embracing a description of the primeval world, and the early changes it underwent, followed by a history of the four eras or ages of primitive mankind, the deluge of Deuca'lion, and then onward down to the time of Augustus Cæsar. This great work of the pagan poet, called The Metamorphoses, is not only the most curious and valuable record extant of ancient mythology, but some have thought they discovered, in every story it contains, a moral allegory; while others have attempted to trace in it the whole history of the Old Testament, and types of the miracles and sufferings of our Savior. But, however little of truth there may be in the last of these suppositions, the beautiful and impressive account of the Creation given by this poet, of the Four Ages of man's history which followed, and of the Deluge, coincides in so many remarkable respects with the Bible narrative, and with geological and other records, that we give it here as a specimen of Grecian fable that contains some traces of true history. The translation is by Dryden:

Account of the Creation.

Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball, And heaven's high canopy, that covers all, One was the face of Nature--if a face-- Rather, a rude and indigested mass; A lifeless lump, unfashioned and unframed, Of jarring elements, and CHAOS named.

No sun was lighted up the world to view, Nor moon did yet her blunted horns renew, Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky, Nor, poised, did on her own foundations lie, Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown; But earth, and air, and water were in one. Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable, And water's dark abyss unnavigable. No certain form on any was impressed; All were confused, and each disturbed the rest.

Thus disembroiled they take their proper place; The next of kin contiguously embrace, And foes are sundered by a larger space. The force of fire ascended first on high, And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky; Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire, Whose atoms from inactive earth retire; Earth sinks beneath and draws a numerous throng Of ponderous, thick, unwieldy seeds along. About her coasts unruly waters roar, And, rising on a ridge, insult the shore. Thus when the god--whatever god was he-- Had formed the whole, and made the parts agree, That no unequal portions might be found, He moulded earth into a spacious round; Then, with a breath, he gave the winds to blow, And bade the congregated waters flow. He adds the running springs and standing lakes, And bounding banks for winding rivers makes. Some parts in earth are swallowed up; the most, In ample oceans disembogued, are lost. He shades the woods, the valleys he restrains With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.

Then, every void of nature to supply, With forms of gods Jove fills the vacant sky; New herds of beasts sends the plains to share; New colonies of birds to people air; And to their cozy beds the finny fish repair. A creature of a more exalted kind Was wanting yet, and then was Man designed; Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast, For empire formed and fit to rule the rest; Whether with particles of heavenly fire The God of nature did his soul inspire, Or earth, but new divided from the sky, And pliant, still retained the ethereal energy. Thus while the mute creation downward bend Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend, Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies.

FOUR AGES OF MAN.

The poet now describes the Ages, or various epochs in the civilization of the human race. The first is the Golden Age, a period of patriarchal simplicity, when Earth yielded her fruits spontaneously, and spring was eternal.

The GOLDEN AGE was first, when man, yet new, No rule but uncorrupted reason knew, And, with a native bent, did good pursue. Unforced by punishment, unawed by fear. His words were simple and his soul sincere; Needless were written laws where none oppressed; The law of man was written on his breast. No suppliant crowds before the judge appeared, No court erected yet, nor cause was heard, But all was safe, for conscience was their guard.

No walls were yet, nor fence, nor moat, nor mound; Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet's angry sound; Nor swords were forged; but, void of care and crime, The soft creation slept away their time. The teeming earth, yet guiltless of the plough, And unprovoked, did fruitful stores allow; The flowers, unsown, in fields and meadows reigned, And western winds immortal spring maintained.

The next; or the Silver Age, was marked by the change of seasons, and the division and cultivation of lands.

Succeeding times a SILVER AGE behold, Excelling brass, but more excelled by gold. Then summer, autumn, winter did appear, And spring was but a season of the year; The sun his annual course obliquely made, Good days contracted, and enlarged the bad. Then air with sultry heats began to glow, The wings of wind were clogged with ice and snow; And shivering mortals, into houses driven, Sought shelter from the inclemency of heaven. Those houses then were caves or homely sheds, With twining osiers fenced, and moss their beds. Then ploughs for seed the fruitful furrows broke, And oxen labored first beneath the yoke.

Then followed the Brazen Age, which was an epoch of war and violence.

To this came next in course the BRAZEN AGE; A warlike offspring, prompt to bloody rage, Not impious yet.

According to He'siod, the next age is the Heroic, in which the world began to aspire toward better things; but OVID omits this altogether, and gives, as the fourth and last, the Iron Age, also called the Plutonian Age, full of all sorts of hardships and wickedness. His description of it is as follows:

Hard steel succeeded then, And stubborn as the metal were the men. Truth, Modesty, and Shame the world forsook; Fraud, Avarice, and Force their places took. Then sails were spread to every wind that blew; Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new: Trees rudely hollowed did the waves sustain, Ere ships in triumph plough'd the watery plain. Then landmarks limited to each his right; For all before was common as the light. Nor was the ground alone required to bear Her annual income to the crooked share; But greedy mortals, rummaging her store, Digged from her entrails first the precious ore; (Which next to hell the prudent gods had laid), And that alluring ill to sight displayed: Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold, Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold; And double death did wretched man invade, By steel assaulted, and by gold betrayed.